Am I ready to go into grade 9? Yes.
Am I scared out of my mind? Also yes.

Welcome to my first ever tPOL! Wow, time flies! It feels like it has been simultaneously forever and 5 minutes since the start of grade 8.

POL declaration:

“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.”

First things first, if you’re unfamiliar with tPOLs, they are transitional presentations of learning. In my tPOL I will be focusing on the improvements I’ve made this year and reflecting on some areas of growth.

I’m going to be honest, in many ways this is difficult for me. The reason being that I’m forced to think about the fact that I am 1/5 of the way through my high school experience. I’m going to be a LEGAL ADULT in 5 years. I still have trouble wrapping my brain around that.

Considering that this is my very first tPOL, I want to get it right. What I mean is I want to look back on this and be proud, not embarrassed or ashamed. As a result of this, I’ve done a bit of procrastination.

Procrastination was a major talking point of my mPOL and has been a common struggle affecting my work this year. You can see this within my dinocell drawings. The reason I struggled with my work on this is I wasn’t able to keep words on the page. I’d type, delete. Type, delete. And so on.

In contrast, procrastination was the last thing on my mind when I worked on my advertisement to present at the Spring Exhibition. I pumped out drafts for the ad without a second thought because I recognized that I didn’t need my drafts to be perfect, I only needed to continue to improve and develop with each irritation. As long as I did that, I knew it would result in a product I’m happy with.

My takeaway from this is that a shift in attitude can and has resulted in a major improvement in quality and confidence in my work.

My development in humanities (aka my favourite class) has meant a lot to me. I have become a more confident writer. I’ve made this progress because of, you guessed it… procrastination. Well rather a lack of. During the beginning of the year I struggled with my writing because I was unhappy with the quality of my first drafts. The MindNode I created during the beginning of the year showcases this. As the year went on, my procrastination became less constant. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely still procrastinated, but on a much lower scale. I’ve demonstrated this in the entirety of The Medium Is The Message project. Another example is my work on Radical Innovations. Not procrastinating has made me a more confident writer as my work is higher quality when I give myself more time to get it done.
I love writing and I love learning about the world, making this progress within humanities made it easier to do both those things.

I’ve grown in many ways relating to my PGP, (Personal Growth Plan) for example my note taking has improved and I have worked on my writing skills. Even in my PGP, which we created during the beginning of the school year, I recognized the importance of routine

PLP 8 Learning Plan Template September 2022.numbers 2

Though I have a long way to go, I’ve made many improvements in my work habits and attitude throughout this year.

I have learned a lot in science this year. From my vaccine source analysis:

To my gummy bear diffusion. I’ve found that I retained information best in Science. This is likely because of the check in spot Ms. Kadi had. During most classes Ms. Kadi would get us to either, submit our work from the class, or answer a few questions relating to the learned material. This has allowed me to remember more material for longer periods of time, while also forcing me out of procrastination as I knew that I would have to hand in work by the end of class.

So, how can I use these failures (First Attempt In Learning) to create a recipe for success?
All of these failures can be traced back to procrastination. While procrastination has not been the only factor in these failures, it plays a significant role. By working on my routine and therefore organization I will greatly improve my current quality of work across all areas. This summer I am actively going to commit to a routine. My hope is that this practice will translate smoothly into the coming school year.

Lets tie this back to the beginning. Am I ready to advance to the next grade?

I am ready, scared, but ready.

Thanks, Kennedy