Welcome!
This is my first ever tPOL, and I will be reflecting upon my first year in PLP, and I will talk about how I am transitioning into grade 9. I will also talk about Humanities, Maker, and Science. But first thing, the POL declaration.
The 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 driving question for this tPOL is “How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?” I have chosen 3 success behaviours to showcase my areas of growth, and how I have grown.
Accepting Feedback 🧗
I chose 1 agency success behaviour, and 2 others. The agency success behaviour I chose to reflect on is Accepting Feedback. I think that I consistently accept feedback now. I chose this one, because I feel like I have really grown in accepting feedback from teachers and others.
Here is a bit of feedback I got from my most recent project “The wilderness must be explored”. If I had gotten this feedback at the start of the year, I would’ve though of it as a fail, but I now see it as an opportunity to improve my work and try to create the best version of it. In this certain project, I was creating advertisements. I learned that there is never a perfect draft, and sometimes you need to hand in many, many drafts of one thing in order to get it right. I only made 3 final ads, but they all took a lot of revision 🔄.
Self Regulation
For my second Success Behaviour to highlight, I chose the self-care part of self regulation. This is something that I need to work on still. I recognize that I get stressed out, but I sometimes don’t seek help with my stress. A lot of the time I just want all my work to turn out perfectly! I have began to realize that all the stress about something as simple as a blog post is not necessary. I think the Spring Exhibition was one of the biggest projects, along with the Winter Exhibition and DI. But surprisingly, I didn’t get very stressed. It could have been that I was in a very strong group, or that I am working on managing my stress levels. I only realized I wasn’t too stressed about it until after the fact. It shows how much better I work, and how more free I feel without being stressed out! Seeking help and recognizing my stress levels is something that I can continue to work on for grade 9, and in the future.
Communication and Collaboration
For my 3rd Success Behaviour, I chose to focus on Communication and Collaboration.
With peers: Whenever I am in a group project, I feel like I am a trusted group member, and I will always do my part. I always try to be supportive, and offer helpful feedback. The project I feel best demonstrated this was the Winter Exhibition. I was in a group where some members had trouble doing their part, and communicating. I was always patient, and I feel like my leadership shone through in this project.
With teachers: I have become much better at communicating with my teachers. As I have gotten to know my teachers better, I have realized that there is no harm in asking for help and asking questions. If I have questions, I will reach out to my teachers on iMessage and ask.
With technology: I have become very responsible with my iPad in class, and I go on do not disturb to block out messages that may be distracting. At the beginning of the year, I would be easily distracted by messages, and I would go to respond but now I refrain.
Humanities 👩🏼💻
Humanities is the subject that I have probably learned the most about resilience from. It can be a very difficult subject at times, but throughout the year I learned so many things in that class, from how to be a good group member, to renaissance and medieval times. We have done so many projects throughout the year, and they ranged from songs to books, but a project that I feel demonstrates the 3 success behaviours I chose was the most recent, the Spring Exhibition. This project was sort of short notice, but I feel like our group was very strong, so we put in a lot of work in the short time. In the end, I was really proud of the whole group for putting in their part.
I actually enjoyed this project, and I had the most fun in this project than any other so far. Probably because we got to go to Oregon 😁! We also got to create our own advertisements and make a whole exhibition out of it!
I got a lot of feedback from my classmates, and teachers. Like I said, I had to revise my ads quite a few times. I used the feedback as an advantage to make them better, and more effective. Yes, there was stress involved. But somehow, I wasn’t that stressed. I trusted my group, and I put in my hardest work. In the end , it all payed off! I communicated and collaborated to my group members through sending checklists, giving helpful feedback, and supporting the group.
During the year, we always reflected back to how things change our worldview. I think that almost every project we did in humanities connected back to our knowledge of worldview. I have grown a much greater understanding about what worldview is. This trip to Oregon definitely changed my worldview in a few ways. One of them being that there is so much to learn about every small place to go to, and that helps we gain understanding in the world. Another was being away from my family for a long time. I have been gone for a week without my family before, but I think it feels different being “At school” for a whole week 24/7.
Maker 🎨
Although we haven’t had maker since first semester, I have carried my skills through until now! I learned a lot about apps, and how to use them. We only really had 2 main projects, because we used Maker to work on Humanities sometimes. One of the projects was where we learned to draw on our iPads. Here is the blog post for that project!
Looking back at that blog post, I had trouble looking at the drawings… I know so much more about using the drawing apps now, so I really think I could improve these drawings now.
With the design skills I have now, I could definitely improve the emoji and make it way neater.
These shapes could have been way neater too!
Science 🧪
I really enjoy science. I think I have really learned a lot about multiple different things in science class. Last year, we never really got to do hands on experiments, but in this class we got to do lots of fun activities and experiments. The project where I demonstrated my learning best was “Small but Mighty”. I got to demonstrate my drawing skills, my scientist observational skills, and I got to communicate it all in a fun way. While creating my field journal, I worked on accepting feedback from peer critiques, and my teacher telling me how to revise. The part that I originally struggled with was being very specific with observations.
This project also helped me work on design skills, as we created a campaign about vaccines.
Another project was the Scratch Video Game.
I am proud of this project, but looking back, I think that I could have asked for more help. I was still working on communicating with teachers back then, but I did ask my classmates for lots of help. Coding is not one of my strong suits, and it is a skill that I will continue to work on throughout my years I am sure.
Some strategies I have used to help me throughout the year!
Attending tutorial time: Something that I have learned to take advantage of is tutorial time. It has been extremely helpful during big projects to get the group together!
Using Things: Using the app things has been a really good way for me to keep track of my assignments, and even personal things. I wish I took advantage of it earlier.
Texting the teachers: As I mentioned, Texting the teachers on iMessage had been really helpful. I don’t hesitate anymore to ask questions!
Looking Back and Looking Forward
Looking back, I just started grade 8 with little knowledge about how PLP works, and new teachers and classmates. I slowly started to learn the ways, and through the year I improved on the subjects that were quite difficult at the start, like humanities! I have learned that not getting a ✅ on my first try is ok, and there is always room for improvement.
A goal that I am going to work on for next year is managing my stress levels. I am going to try to identify the source of my stress, and think if it is worth getting worked up about.
Now, looking forward! I feel like I am a confident learner, and I am excited for next year and all that it entails. I have become much more confident speaking in front of my class, and teachers. I am looking forward to doing PLP next year!
