tPOL😬

Yes, it’s that time of year again, it’s POL time. EPISODE 2: THE DREADED TPOL!! Now, if you don’t remember my last post on a POL, its called “mPOL” standing for mid-year presentation of learning. But now that it’s the end of the year and I am going into grade nine next year (agghhhhhhhh) it’s time for my tPOL. tPOL stands for transitional presentation of learning meaning I am transitioning into grade 9 PLP. It’s pretty much a super scary meeting with my parents and one of my teachers where I have to prove why I am worthy of getting back into PLP next year. It’s only a tad bit scary, just a tad. I will be talking about the lessons I have learned this year because of good experiences and bad ones, good work habits I use often, how I have grown as a learner, how I can improve, revision, and teamwork. Here is the driving question that kind of encompasses all of that, Why Do You Feel You Are Ready To Advance To The Next Grade Level? I think it’s about time we get right into it!

HUMANITIES AND A RELIGIOUS INFOGRAPHIC

This post is going to be mainly me talking about impactful projects, projects that have taught me something valuable. They may not have been the most successful, but they have helped me to grow as a learner more than any of the others. They have taught me to overcome my bad habits and feelings, they have taught me about group work and how to be a leader, and how to accept failure. The first one is from Humanities, now remember, this is projects from throughout the whole year, so there might be some repeated from my mPOL but whatevs. Anyway, the most impactful project I have done all year in Humanitites, was probably our Infographic unit. You can check out the post about it, its called “A Religious Worldview.” This project was probably one of the hardest projects I have actually ever done in my life, it took a lot of adjusting to my group and everyone’s different personalities, a lot of accepting reality, and learning how to be a kind and respectful leader.

I remember, there was one point in time during the project where we were showing this draft of our infographic to the class:

We thought it was absolutely great, it was a great improvement from our last one and, I guess, it looked okay. But the response we got back broke my heart  Ms. Willemse, our Humanities teacher said, after a round of critique, said that we were getting a “C” on our current copy. Our whole group, me, Taylor, Kiera, and Jackson were completely shocked, we didn’t see that coming at us. I think it scared us a bit, especially because in this specific unit we were taking a huge creativity risk by drawing our WHOLE ENTIRE INFOGRAPHIC, while every other group was making them in apps. I learned a lesson from that too (aghhhhh, so many lessons and knowledge, I know, I’m sorry, I just learned so much!!!), I learned not too base my work off of other people’s work, that it’s okay for it to be a little bit different. But by the end of the unit, we got it together, worked hard as a team, and came out with this beauty:

I am very proud of this work, we ended up getting a much better mark than a “C” on that one too  But the point of that story wasn’t about getting from point A to point B with amazing marks, it was about the path in between, the Rocky Mountain you have to climb until you reach the top, revealing beautiful views and a feeling left inside you that is indescribable.

Because of this project and my last mPOL post, I have improved all of these bad habits and used lessons from this particular unit in all of my other projects. I learned that it is important to take creative risks, always work your hardest and think outside of the box, and sometimes being in a group is harder than anticipated, but it’s worth it in the end. Another huge part of this project was Worldview. This was the first project when I had even heard of it. The first time it was mentioned to us I was really confused and I didn’t really understand what it was. Through out the project I kind of pondered on it though, started thinking about it more and more, and realized what my worldview was, kind of who I am. Skills like these are important for the present and future and I believe I can use them in oncoming years to make projects successful. We may have  F.A.I.L.Ed the first time, but if you get up and try, try again, you will get the outcome you want.

MAKER AND A DI ADVENTURE

I’m just going to warn you before I actually get into my crazy adventure in maker, that this project/challenge was the most unique and educational experience, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything else no matter what because… well, I won’t get into it too much, I don’t want to spoil the best parts!! DI, stands for Destination Imagination, if you don’t know what it is, check out my 2 blog posts on it, regionals and provincials, they are called…… “We have reached your destination… IMAGINATION!!” And “2x The Ginge.” Let’s get back to the subject. So, I was in, literally my dream group, I was with a bunch of my good friends, Taylor, Jackson, and Aedan, they were awesome. But, when you have a group of best friends who are supposed to be working together, they often get sidetracked. Not good. So when it came time for regionals, we weren’t super prepared, we got up there we ran out of time, we weren’t facing the audience, IT WAS JUST A MESS!! That experience taught me to focus. It’s simple, no matter who I am with in a group, whether it be my best friends or not, I need to stick to my game. I mean, don’t ignore them, if they need help of course I will help them, that is something that’s comes along with a strong leader, but don’t let them distract you. Plus, I am a bit of a natural chatterbox, so I need to be extra careful with what I am doing with my time.

Anyways, I would not settle, not after what happened at regionals, I decided we would work harder than ever, because I wanted to do well. But we got hit with another obstacle making it even more difficult, one of our team members couldn’t come…. and one of them already told us they couldn’t, so two out of four of our team members were gone, and Jackson and I were left to figure it out on our own. We ended up fulfilling our goal of doing better than regional, we actually came 4th out of 8 teams which is only one place away from a chance to go to global, and we only had two people!!

During this project, I learned 3 big things.

Thing #1: It doesn’t mater the group or the people you are working with, always work hard and don’t get distracted. This is a problem every child has at some point in school, when the teacher puts you next to your best friend and all you do for the whole class it talk and talk and talk, that’s completely normal. I have gotten a lot better at not talking as much as I did, but there is always room for improvement. If I fix this by the and of this year and early next year, I will be focused for all my projects and get into the groove.

Thing #2: I learned how to be a good leader. I’ve always kind of been in a leader position during group work, like in grade 7, but I really learned what it means to be a good leader. It took me a few projects to lear the right techniques until I finally did. I discovered that people like it when you are kind, don’t be bossy, they won’t respond and usually just ignore you. You have to be helpful and give instructions, guide people so everyone has a task. And most importantly, be a friend, don’t be a teacher, just work with them, laugh, have fun.

Last thing: Presenting…. is scary. That’s a known fact. But everyone has to do it at some point in their lives, and DI was the first time I actually had to present in front of a judge, so it was even scarier. But you have to present all through out your life. DI taught me that it’s not as scary as you think, what’s the worst that could happen?? You fail?? Yes, but then you get another chance, you will learn from that mistake and make it better next time.

SCIMATHICS AND THE DOOR PROJECT

The finished product!!

Last year, in grade 7, was when math clicked for me… or at least I thought. Math had been going well even at the beginning of the year when we were learning about fractions and other things. I even understood surface area until (duh duh duh!!) we were given the door project. The door project was one in which we had to increase the surface area of our door by five times, yes, five whole times. You can check out my post on it, “The Door Is a Bore No More!” Anyway, the point is that as you can probably tell, this was a very difficult project since all we could use were paper shapes and tape. I was in an okay group, there was one challenge i had to overcome though, the fact that half of our group wasn’t super enthusiastic and didn’t really want to work. So that left to of us working hard on this difficult project. Half way through we realized we had messed up big time, almost all of our calculations were wrong and we thought we pretty much had to restart.

So our group came together and worked together as a team, it was a lot easier and more efficient that way. We were busy planning out our new project until… BING !! Oh yes, that certainly is a light bulb, and it means that we and a brilliant idea that would allow us not to restart our whole project, we just thought of things in a different way, looked at them from a different view. Our project turned out amazing in the end, all because we looked at things from a. Different perspective, we thought outside of the box. That day, was a very important day. The day I realized that thinking even a little bit outside the box, can do wondrous things, sometimes the project even turns out better than it would have before.

IN CONCLUSION….

Grade 8 has been one of the best years of my life. Not just because of all the fun parts such as new friends, more freedom, and longer breaks, but because of how much I have grown as a learner. If it wasn’t for PLP, I wouldn’t know how to create an advertisement or any still image for that matter, I wouldn’t have known I had something called a worldview even though it makes up who I am, I wouldn’t have known how to present a proper presentation, and I sure wouldn’t have known how to tell a story in all of the ways I know now. And those are just the general things that every one learned all year. If we get more specific and talk about what I learned from each project, this post would be very long. I only touched on what I learned this year up above. All these skills, leadership, creativity, accepting failure, and teamwork are just a start and imagine all of the things I could do with just these?? Technically, what I am saying is, I have grown past the point of measure, and no, I don’t mean height wise (although I have probably done that too), I mean in my skills, my knowledge, and my character. PLP hasn’t only helped figure out how I like to learn, it has showed me who I am and who I want to be. All of the amazing lessons I have learned and skills I have developed have and will help me to grow as a learner in oncoming years. “ A person can grow only as much as her horizon allows.”- John Powell

I like that quote, I think it explains that you only grow as much as you want, it’s not like there is a limit. So, in that case, I have no limit.

~Jordyn