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.

The Main Three

For my TPoL this year, I chose balance, reflection, accepting feedback, and resilience as my main topics.  Although for my verbal presentation, I will not be touching on accepting feedback as technically we are only supposed to do three (overachiever, who?).  The first topic I touch on will be the one that I am least proficient and still struggling with.  The second will represent something that I have progressed in but am still working on while the last will be the one I believe I am actively achieving.

Befuddled by Balance

In the area of self-regulation, balance is something that I continuously struggle with.  Stated bluntly, I have almost no social life (although I am thankful my friends still reach out even if I am not able to hang out due to school) nor any regular extra curricular activities.  I have landed myself in this situation by continuously overachieving and overestimating how much I can accomplish.  In addition, I hold my work to extremely high standards, sometimes causing me to redo things because they are not satisfactory.  If I do not fix subpar work, I feel the time is wasted and if I continue to create products that are not up to my standards, I will simply not create anything. Being somewhat of a perfectionist and a chronic control freak (no thanks to my anxiety and people pleasing tendencies) causes me to be set on the image in my mind and I feel threatened by anything that differs from that image.  Due to this fixed mindset, I often feel that others’ work degrades my own, especially if it is not visually appealing.  My vanity in regards to my own capabilities mixed with my trust issues and belief that others’ work is automatically subpar causes me to delegate tasks unevenly, often assigning myself significantly more than others and refusing the help of my peers.  This was definitely a prominent issue in DI where I took on significantly more work than I could handle and tried to do it all by myself causing me to have a little bit of burnout.

In my journey of stepping away from complete dictatorship over projects, I have taken executive functioning coaching where I am learning to compromise with myself on the mental image of the final product.  In this coaching, I am also learning to delegate tasks in a way that makes me feel comfortable, for example, playing into others’ strengths and weaknesses.  I am also working on my trust issues, specifically around others’ capabilities of finishing something on time, with my therapist (coincidentally also named Alli, like my math teacher).

Epiphanies in Engagement

As a presumed human being, I am capable of growth.  One major area of growth for me this year was reflection.  At the beginning of this year, I was having difficulties with writing blog posts.  I was extremely stressed at the beginning of the year and was not adjusting well to the new environment of high school. This high level of stress impaired my ability to learn new skills.  I didn’t understand how to write a blog post and I was still too frazzled to phrase my questions in a way that would be helpful to me (I also feel that my teachers were a little overwhelmed at the beginning of the year and a bit too busy to help).  These combined factors caused my blog post documentation to be inconsistent and a little lacklustre.  I felt so overwhelmed whenever I tried to write one that I would have breakdowns and cry resulting in me avoiding them at all costs.  

Although I struggled a lot at the beginning of this year with blog posts, I have had a breakthrough.  I am now capable of crafting a well-rounded blog post that accurately represents my experiences with and thoughts on specific projects.  I started to improve blog post writing around my Blizzard Wizards vs Destination Imagination and Welcome to the Chaos of Provincials blog posts.  To get through this challenge I created a highly structured framework of questions to answer using the general format what/how, so what, and now what, with multiple prompts in each section to keep my creativity flowing. Though I created this list mostly on my own, Ms Kadi provided some additional questions that were quite helpful.  I also keep the basic criteria for all blog posts at hand whenever writing one.  In regards to language and tone I use in my typical blog posts, I took inspiration from one of Milena’s blog posts and somewhat adapted it to be sophisticated but silly.  The first blog that I created that I’m actively proud of is my MPoL blog.

If I had a second point that I could share under ongoing growth, I would choose accepting feedback under the section agency.  I actively try to improve my work based on feedback I receive but sometimes need clarification on what the feedback entails.  Sometimes this can be due to its wording, which may reflect my literacy challenges, although speaking to teachers in person for feedback is a helpful workaround as I can interpret meaning based on tone.  Using a back and forth loop of ask, answer, ask, answer is also quite helpful. For example, during the Develop and Critique phase of our advertising project “The wilderness must be explored!” I sought out verbal critique for my advertisements after not completely understanding the written ones.  This proved extremely useful in creating a well-rounded advertisement.  Accepting feedback, with verbal clarification, is something that I have started more recently and want to keep up in future years.

Achieving Agency

A category I believe I am proficient in is resilience as it is something I have had to develop and utilize my entire life because of my struggles with the school system and human beings in general.  But more specifically, in PLP, I have exercised my resilience by bouncing back even after my numerous breakdowns that occurred in the first term.  Having strategies like talking to my therapist or executive functioning coach are newer things that I am using to overcome challenges and setbacks.  But some that I was using at the beginning of this year and still use are taking unnecessary things off my plate (however begrudgingly) and taking a break from the task at hand, either by waiting till the next day or having a shower and coming back.  I have also learned how to adapt situations to better suit my brain and capabilities allowing me to continue to move forward.  I showed this in my Mind Over Matter! project by adapting the assignment from creating a video game in Scratch to creating a stop motion video.  I played into my strengths and overcame a challenging task.

One More Paragraph, Then We’re Done

In conclusion, I have come a long way from where I started at the beginning of this year.  And I have had a blast learning in PLP; it has been fun, challenging and interesting (just like me).  I wholly recommend PLP for those who enjoy learning in different and engaging ways. It has opened my eyes to a new world of learning possibilities where I feel I can contribute my specific skill set on the regular and grow into a self-aware learner.  I found it helpful to show comparisons to highlight my growth as a learner.  Showing examples from the past and present makes it easier to identify what has changed and what has stayed the same, for better or for worse.  The examples of growth that I have shared here highlight PLP Success Behaviours that need a little bit of work as well ones that I have become proficient at this year.  I look forward to applying, exercising, and developing these Success Behaviours in grade 9.