Statement of Learning
“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”
I have grown and changed so much throughout grade 8, and overall I loved my first year at seycove. PLP was a new program for me. Despite hearing some things from Charlie, I didn’t know too much about how it worked, the learning we were going to be doing, and how I would like it. I am really enjoying my time in High School and PLP, and for now it is a perfect fit for me.
In my mPOL I set goals for myself and reflected on my learning plan, and in my tPOL post I will be talking about my year in grade 8 as a whole, talking about a few selected success behaviours and setting some goals and things I hope to achieve in grade 9!
RESILIENCE
In the category Agency, I chose Resilience. An example of resilience would be working through DI (destination Imagination). DI was an interesting experience. 
I’ve done DI before, where we got first place, but this was nothing like doing it before. When I got my group, I was thinking ok, we can do this, but oh boy was I ever wrong. We did our plans, and got our story sorted out, but we still had a script to write, costumes to make and find, and props to build. We dedicated 2 pro D days to making our props which turned out really well! The only problem was the DI competition was a week away, and we needed to practice and figure out the other small details. We ended up spending long days at school, and the weekend memorizing lines. I think the competition went relatively well, although if we had more time I think our story could’ve evolved and been a little better. Over the 
course of finishing our performance I got frustrated a couple times. Yes, sometimes I like things to be done my way, but that isn’t always the answer. I think that when I get frustrated I tell myself things that need to get done, rather than making and doing unnecessary things that aren’t very helpful to my group. I need to focus on bouncing back and spreading out the work so that everyone can be successful in my group. For me, showing resilience is being flexible with my peers, listening to their ideas and communicating my thoughts openly. In the end, DI went ok. If my group used our time better and bounced ideas off each other earlier I believe we could have done better. You can read about my first DI experience here.
ENGAGEMENT
The next success behaviour I am going to talk about is engagement. Compared to the beginning of the year, I have gotten so much better at class discussions and 
participating. At the beginning of the year, I felt like I knew what to say and that it was at least somewhat right, but I didn’t want to mess up or say the wrong thing, so I didn’t say anything at all. This was a huge mistake because as I spoke up more, and became more confident with my ideas and thoughts, I got more things correct, or it was a good idea. Now when a question is asked, most of the time, I can shoot my hand up and present my idea, and be confident in myself. Of course, my thoughts aren’t always right, and I have gotten better at accepting that. Sometimes I’m thinking along the right lines, but it just doesn’t quite fit, or sometimes I am 100% on the wrong track, and need to rethink everything. Being wrong and correcting your answer to make it right shows learning because you can show what you learned by explaining why your answer is wrong. I can show my engagement through my blog posts and even in my mPOLS and tPOLS! Here are some examples of my blog posts:
COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION
For my third and final success behaviour I chose communication and collaboration.
With teachers: I have become so much better at communicating with my teachers openly. As I learned about my teachers, and got to know them, I became aware that I am not wrong to ask questions. Asking questions shows you are engaged and aware of what’s happening around you. I ask my teachers questions in person and on iMessage, whenever I need help because its not wrong to need help.
With peers: In group projects, I feel as if I am a trusted and responsible group member. I will do my part in the project, and accept and give feedback. I think I 
demonstrated this best at the End Of The World project, where my group was sometimes off task, and needed some reminders to hop back on and stay as engaged as possible.
With Technology: I believe I am responsible with my iPad in class, and I am always doing what is expected of me. I stay on task, and do my best to get my work done in class. I had some trouble in the earlier stages of the year, when messages would become distracting, but now I can block those out, put on DND (do not disturb) and focus on the task at hand.
SCIENCE
I learned so much in Science this year that was all new. Last year we didn’t get to do fun experiments where we could involve our hands and be creative in new ways. 
Where as this year we get to balance doing fun experiments with learning cool information to then using that information and making our projects with it. The project we just finished doing was called Small But Mighty, and in this project we were taught all about cells in our bodies which we demonstrated through our immune system character cards. I was really proud of how I took the feedback I got on my field journal and made it better. I struggled the most with making my observations precise and accurate.
Another project we completed in science was our scratch video game. This game was another example of how I showed resilience. I found it very frustrating that scratch kept glitching and game deleted several times, but I kept at it and eventually I got it. Coding is something I can continue to work on, and the more I do it the better I will get at it.
HUMANITIES
Humanities has been an up and down subject for me all year. Some projects I 
thoroughly enjoyed, and some I disliked. In life, you can’t choose it all, so I dealt with it! We have done so many projects this year from writing songs to presenting to grade 11s! The most recent project we did, the Spring Exhibition, was the one I chose, because I think it shows my success behaviours I chose the most. The project on the spring exhibition all started with our field study along the Oregon Coast. As we went, little by little we added to our ‘adventure book’ which was a document of the activities and things we did. Other than the book, our project was all about advertising. We were split up into groups for the Spring Exhibition and my group got the theme Discovery and Learning. We were to represent the theme of our group in our advertisements about the Oregon Coast. I love that everyone in my group collaborated and contributed to our dazzling final result. I think our presentation at the exhibition turned out great and it is definitely something to be proud of.
Over the course of the year, worldview is always something we put into 
consideration. ‘How does this affect your worldview?’ ‘How does this project influence your worldview?’ These were questions we were peppered with and they will always and forever stick with me. It helps me put myself into other people’s shoes. The Oregon trip influenced my worldview because all the little stops and stores and jobs people do can change a persons mind.
WHAT HAS HELPED ME GROW AS A LEARNER?
2 small things have helped me become a better learner in and out of school.
- Attending Tutorial
- Using The Things App
PREPARING FOR GRADE 9
Looking back on my grade 8 year, I have learned so much about how PLP works, how my teachers teach, and how my peers work. Although grade 8 is a difficult year, I love that I now know that getting revisions is ok, and learning from your mistakes is great, because you are a better learner from it.
A goal I am setting myself for next year is being more efficient with my time. I feel as though I spend more time on my work than I really need to. To make it become good to great takes time, but not so much that I am only adding little things at a time.
I feel as though I am ready for next year, and I hope that it is just as fun or even more so than this year! I have become more confident in myself as a learner and a leader in the classroom, so I hope this shows through next year, and the following years as well.
Thank you so much for listening to my tPOL!! Have a great summer!!! ☀️⛱️
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