Monthly Archives: January 2023

Reflections, Stories

MPOL 2022

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Hello teachers and parents, and welcome to my MPOL! This year has come with new opportunities, and new experiences, including our first out of country field study! 

(Introduce parents to teacher)

“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, I’m going to answer the driving questions. “How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?” I’ve shown growth by pushing my comfort zone, and becoming more confident in my abilities. For example, in the “trust fall” activity at loon lake, I was doubting myself at first, but at the end, I had full confidence in myself and my peers. 

“How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?” I can do that by reviewing and updating it, to make sure I’m doing what’s best for my learning. Also, by setting goals that are attainable by the end of this school year. 

Now, I’m going to talk about my growth in humanities:

In humanities, we’ve completed 3 projects, ”GOLD”, which was about the gold rush in BC during the early 19th century. And “Ology of apology”, which was about different instances of mistreatment in BC, and how Canada has apologized for those actions. And of course our most recent project, “Romeo, Romeo, are we still talking about Romeo?” In which we recreated a scene from the play, with modern aspects….

My strengths in Humanities are being a leader in group settings, and assigning roles to others. Also, I’m good at communicating my thoughts and opinions to peers and teachers. I’ve show these traits in the “ology of apology” project, by voicing my opinions on what our memorial should be. Furthermore, I’m able to manage a lot of things at the same time. For example, different objectives, and being able to plan out my time effectively. 

Things that I want to work on are story-writing and storytelling. Earlier in the year, during the “GOLD’ project, we were tasked with creating a story about the BC gold rush. And at first I was pretty puzzled, and didn’t know where to start. I sook help, by asking my sister for pointers, and she critiqued my existing work. In all, that was a good experience, and I benefitted from that immensely. As the year continues, I want to build upon that skill, and enhance my learning. 

 

One change I have made so far this year, is my mindset on projects. In past years, I’ve had negative opinions on projects, and had a “closed mindset”. This year my goal is to become more opened minded, and be able to put myself out there, by learning about new topics. 

My work throughout the year so far has showed that I like to be different, by creating things that others don’t. For example, in the winter exhibition, my group and I created a video as opposed to creating a physical mural, which most groups did. I found that our video held a deeper meaning, and explained further the idea of our room. 

Now I’m going to talk about Field studies:

So far this year, we’ve been to loon lake for a learning advance. This experience centred around leadership, and working in groups. It was a rollercoaster of a ride, in which I learned about myself, and the PLP 10 team. During this excursion, I learned many interesting things; to not take juice for granted, and that people have more layers than you think. During the infamous “crossing the line” activity, I learned about my peers, and more about myself in the process. 

Looking forward, in the next month we have our first-ever out-of country field study, which will be at Disneyworld. I’m very excited to see what the learning will look like , and for all the exciting features, its Disneyworld! 

Next, I’m going to reference my learning plan. 

A part of my disposition is time management, and finding the time to finish certain tasks. Also, consistency, meaning in my PLP work, and being able to always meet the due date. 

For my habits, I reference staying on task, and not getting distracted by outside sources. And asking for help, from peers or teachers. 

To summarize, this year has been filled with good learning experiences, and opportunities for growth. My goals for next semester are to improve my writing, and ability to tell stories. I can do this by writing more, and regularly getting critique from others. Also, I want to have a better and more positive attitude in every activity/project we do. I can accomplish this by referring to the 7 habits from last year, and by looking at things with new perspectives.

Thanks for watching my MPOL!

Now I ask you, the audience, is there anything that I should focus on more, or that wasn’t;t mentioned in my presentation?

Group Project, Humanities, Reflections

Ology of Apology/Exhibition Post

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Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. Today’s blog is about the recent project we’ve been working on: “Ology of apology”. We later applied this project to our work in the the Winter Exhibition. In this project, we learned about key moments in BC’s history. Specifically, the Chinese head tax, the Komogata Maru, and Japanese internment. The driving question for this project was: “How can we keep apologies for past wrongs alive so they are remembered and not repeated today?” We can do this by making promises, and keeping them. Also, by educating the next generation on these events, so they are never repeated.

We started this project by defining what made good audio. We watched this halloween podcast, and as a group, we discussed whether this audio was effective or not. We talked about the characteristics of good audio, and how to portray it. Next, we defined our “KWL’S”, know, wonder, learn about the respective topics we were exploring. 

For keystone 1, we researched, and created a keynote on our assigned topic. Out of the 3 topics, we were given one, I was assigned Japanese internment. For this assignment, we explained our topic in story format, and defined whether it was just or unjust.

I had created a decent first draft, however, my story needed some work, and I needed to explain my topic in further detail. I applied the critique from my peers and from teachers, and made a final draft. 

Here’s what it looked like:

Presentation 67

For keystone 2, we were tasked with creating a audio clip, that accompanied our keynote, and told the story of our event. It had to be 2 minutes long, and explain whether our event was justified, or unjustified. At first, I didn’t know where to start. So I just focused on telling an effective story, that explained the key events. 

Here’s my completed audio clip:

After completing both keystones, we were put into groups. We were each assigned a topic, I got Japanese internment, Mateo, and Patrick were my partners. 

The next step to this project was incorporating it into the Winter Exhibition. We each got a room to demonstrate our learning, and how it connected to James Cameron’s fantasy world of “Avatar”. Each group had to create a memorial, that described our event. We were in the “Corporate greed” room, so we had to explain how our event related to that idea.

For our memorial, our group created a “heritage minute” about Japanese internment. We used photos and videos from the event, and we created some clips of our own, that described the event. Here’s our heritage minute:

On the day of the exhibition, it was chaos. We had to quickly assemble our rooms, and make sure they were presentable. We were emulating a “buiseness lounge”, so we all dressed in fancy clothes. In our room, there was mostly grade 8’s, so we had to be leaders, since we had done this before. After spending hours getting our room ready the teachers cleared us, and it was time for dinner, which was pizza.

During the exhibition, I presented for many family friends and family members, which was a cool experience. Also, I got asked lots of good clarifying questions, that further tested my knowledge.

To summarize, this project was very interesting and I learned a lot. I didn’t know about the internment in Vancouver, or the mistreatment of refugees off the coast of east van. I was also able to collaborate with others, to reach a common goal. The exhibition had many ups and downs, from being in a panic, to feeling good about the work we had created.

Thanks for reading!