“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.”
The next step in our PLP journey is the MPOL. The MPOL is a mid-year presentation of learning and since I am still fairly new to PLP, this is my first MPOL. The driving questions we were to reflect on were, How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year? How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of the school year? My first step was to look back at the Learning Plan I wrote when I joined PLP. The areas of growth I identified in my learning plan were: setting realistic goals, being a leader in the classroom, and developing strategies to not become too stressed when faced with the many deadlines and pressures of school and sports. Reflecting on these past few months has taken me on a journey where I have learned years of information. In the highlight of these past few months, I would like to shine a light on three particular projects. The three projects that I feel taught me the most were my revolutions project, my Frakenstuffie video, and My Louis Riel paragraph piece. I found these projects exemplified my strengths as well as areas of growth.
To start the new experience of PLP off I was assigned to learn and depict history in the form of an infographic. The revolution that I chose to study was the French Revolution because I have a lot of interest in Napoleon and the uprising of the people against the monarchy. I felt like I needed to have a passion for the area I was learning about because it made me more engaged. We were assigned to do multiple drafts of our infographic so we could present our best version possible. The first draft felt easy to me because I had a lot of knowledge on the revolution and I was able to insert it into sections and add pictures to support the evidence. Once handed in I felt pretty good but when I received my feedback I felt a bit confused because they wanted me to take out a bunch of information to make it more visually appealing and have less detail. I felt that was a challenge because I felt that most of the information I had was essential to understanding the revolution. I had to make some tough choices on what to leave out and what to keep overall. I felt like I was very proud of my work and thought it successfully portrayed the French Revolution. The skills I took from this project were adaptability and how to capture an audience. In this project, I felt like I wasn’t concise which led to a lot of over-run-on sentences and the reader not being able to understand my message. Now with the skills I have learned I feel that I am more concise and able to engage my audience.
Another very influential project was our recent Frankenstuffie video before PlP I had done very close to zero videos by myself. In previous projects I wasn’t on the video portion so I didn’t learn much of the editing and filmmaking skills that others had previously had because of this I found it a real challenge to make a working video of my Frakenstuffie. Luckily we were taught different media apps to help us with our filmmaking process. I felt that the best media tools were keynote Imovie and cap cut. These three apps allowed me to show my Frakenstufiie in a video that invoked emotion and fear. I captured shots of myself and my Frakenstuffies behind green screens and got some real-life shots. I used the screen screen and movement effect of the keynote to help transport me into places I couldn’t reach in real life. I used cap cuts and special effects to add excitement. Once I had all my clips I put them into iMovie and added my audio. In this project, Before this project I was barely even able to combine some clips to make a whole movie. I felt this was a major skill I lacked before this project which held me back.
One project that I felt I had to learn new skills for was the Louis Riel writing piece. During this project, we wrote about how Louis Riel was portrayed in different media. I didn’t have that much interest in this project because I’m not too interested in Canadian history. This made it harder for me to make up ground because I didn’t have a solid base of information. With hard work and preparation, I was able to make up that deficit and start writing my essay. I felt really good about my essay heading into the first revision but when I got my feedback I was a bit confused. I did my essay more on the history when my teachers wanted it on the comparison of portrayals not on how history related to his portrayal. I struggled writing about this because I overthought and complicated it in my head. It took me a while but I finally got it sorted out and was able to write a good essay. The skills that I took away were not over complicated and time management because I had to rush to finish my project. In the future, I would ask my teachers if I am on the right track so I don’t have to redo everything again.
A Real Riel Killer?
Louis Riel was a historically polarizing figure whose gaining interest has resulted in a more contemporary understanding of how he contributed to Canadian history. Riel has had many positive and negative portrayals depicting how he affected history. Some of the statues showing real life have very different depictions which make us wonder how he truly affected our history. Riel is portrayed in films like “War Stories” which show more of the historical perspective of him and how his action led to his portrayal. There are also other films such as the “Heritage Minute” showing a one sided positive perspective on Riel. Overall a these sources shape of vision of Riel and hope to undercover the real truth about Riel.
To see different perspectives on the so-called “truth” we should look to Lenny and Garboury, they were the creators of an abstract statue of Riel. In this statue Riel is depicted as a man who prevented Canada from growing. He is portrayed as a naked man trying to break free from the narrative as a killer and write a false narrative on how he is a hero. This shows how in 1973 some still saw Riel as the same stone-cold killer. Later in the late 1900s, a more updated statue by Marcien Lemay portrays Riel as a bold and strong leader. The statue shows him as one who stood up for the Métis people and died as a martyr. This proves the more contemporary understanding of Riel and how he sacrificed himself for his people.
Proof of some of the more updated portrayals of Louis Riel is the Heritage Minute showing the final moments of Riel’s life before he was hung. They portray him as a man who is being wrongfully hung and is proud of what he did for his people. If he were to be shown in a more negative way he would be struggling and fighting but in the video, they show him more in peace and serenity. The final example which shows the negative portrayal is how he is depicted in war stories. In war stories it shows how the government’s reactions to when Riel drove back the surveyors, killed Thomas Scott, and the fighting against the government’s army. Since these events weren’t beneficial for the government, they cast a negative view on Riel and used these views and actions from Riel to kill him. Overall all these portrayals show Riel in many different lights, helping to establish Canada into the nation it is today. Louis Riel’s perception changed from an outcast and killer to an essential character who helped preserve Metis society. As we learn more about Riel we uncover his true identity and his contribution to Canadian history.
When I entered PLP I had some PLP-related goals for myself. The two that I would like to highlight are getting Proficient or Extending in all subjects and successfully building a rube goldberg machine. A goal that I have achieved so far is getting Proficient or Extending in all subjects. I have done this by working hard and prioritizing school work when I would rather do other things. To get to Extending I feel like I need to show that I can go above and beyond. To do this I plan to try to do more than what’s expected so I can exceed my goals. Sadly I didn’t achieve my goal of having a successful Rube Goldberg machine. Despite saying this I thought I learned lots of lessons on teamwork and we were able to get most of it working. I thought if I did this project again I would be able to reach my goal because of the lessons I’ve learned. One goal I have for the second half of the year is to get my projects done for the first time because I redo my project so many times when I can just do it well the first time. Another goal that I have is not to feel frustrated when I receive criticism and to learn how to accept it better. I feel this will help me improve my work and not dwell on the past.
I felt like I showed almost all of the core competencies this semester but the ones that I want to get even better at are preparation and communication and collaboration. If I learn to prepare better I will have more time to do things and have a clear plan to improve. Steps I will take to improve on this are outlining so I stay on one path. To work on communication and collaboration will allow me to express my ideas to my group while also allowing me to receive their feedback. Steps I will take to allow me to work on this is to be more concise with my ideas and narrow them down so I can have a dedicated solution and try to integrate other people’s ideas into mine so we have the best solution possible.
Overall I felt like I have overcome so many challenges to get to the point I am at today. I changed from linear to semester, I went from an old-school style of learning to a more modern and composed style of learning all while dealing with sports at a new school and maintaining good grades. The challenges that I have faced over these past few months have helped me grow immensely as a student, friend, son, and teammate.