Jan
2023
MPOL 2023!
Everything starts with yourself. Whatever makes you uncomfortable is your biggest opportunity to grow. I always keep this in mind with everything I do because if you’re scared of something for example presenting a project or trying a new trick on a skateboard, doesnt matter if your scared, do it scared.
My growth follows this. Without getting outside of your comfort zone no one would have ever accomplished anything. You need to seize your moment. MPOL is where I show this and all my growth as a learner.
What I plan my learning to look like this year, and how can I improve it?
Overall to achieve my goals I need a plan, not just any but an organized plan because that’s what works for me. At the start of the year I created a learning plan, but now its time to improve it.
To improve these attributes I need to be critical about what how I can improve them. Overall on almost all of these I measure as profile five which means there’s is still room to improve on.
-Firstly on communicating I can push myself beyond my limit, take new interests in social places and meet new people in my community.
-Secondly, for creative thinking I believe I can go above and beyond by extending and presenting my research in creative ways such as in forms of art.
-Thirdly, I believe I can improve my personal awareness and responsibility by taking more time for my health and especially mental health such as getting a good nights rest and staying hydrated.
-Fourthly, for collaborating I think I could improve this by getting to know my peers better within group assignments as well as I could find ways so we stay on track and focused but still have fun.
-Fifthly, I believe for critical and reflective thinking I think I could analyze my work and then create conclusions, and for that I could ask peers and teachers to review my work and how I can adjust and improve it.
-Almost there, for positive personal and cultural identity I think I could adventure more into my life experiences and how they’ve benefited me and changed the person I am now; I can do that by asking my parents and others about myself and also remembering experiences I’ve had throughout my life.
-Lastly, for social awareness and responsibly I think I could go more i depth in topics I care about and advocate for them such as sharing my knowledge with people and online to the world, trying to make a difference.
Now let’s move on to my classes,
Humanities:
My plan for humanities is quite simple, there’s my strengths, areas of growth and my support system, but there are a couple ways I can improve it such as for my areas of growth.
At the start of the year I wanted to get out of my comfort zone more and speak to new people, I feel I have achieved that due to I have made many news friends of all ages around my community and school. To sharpen the goal now is I would like to feel more comfortable and confident speaking in public places. Another area of growth was time management. I believe that throughout this year I have gotten better at managing my time with my assignments, but I thing I feel is the new area of growth is working on my procrastination and how to get by that. Finally, I feel I have improved at my learning of history and english such as asking questions, taking notes, etc, but I feel I could do better by improving my own learning while researching such as going down rabbit holes of criminal activity while researching art theft.
For humanities I wanted to accomplish an overall Extending grade. This is my first year so I didn’t exactly know what type of material I would have to create to get an extending grade so I asked around, looked at other’s projects for inspiration and always had the question for every piece of my work “what could I do to improve this?”
The Outsiders:
The Outsiders was probably the most interesting project due to it relying on group work. For this I got to meet new people and I learn how to work with them equally to create a finished piece we were all pleased with. We got to use all kinds of tools and materials in the process such as our basics like our iPads and everything on them, but as well we got costumes, props and more along those lines to create our book cover. I learned all about the Outsiders with them as well as I learned a lot from them, they taught me about photography, photo editing, modelling and especially being confident in others. Since it was group work I learned to let go and trust the others in my group to collaborate with me. Overall my outlook on this project is that it was great, I feel I accomplished my goal of being collaborative.
-The cons to this project though were for me at the beginning it was all just reading and writing questions down and I found that quite boring because I could have been doing anything else at that time. Handling my boredom was difficult at first but once we start getting into the actual making of the project it went away.
Middle Ages:
For this project, the Middle Ages I definitely felt I extended. I showed this in many ways, firstly was my presentation. I created a slideshow on Keynote; every slide had vital pieces of information relevant to my topic but were kept to a minimal so they were clear and clean. Also I included images and their sources, my own illustrations and for the presentation I included animations.
Secondly, I showed a thorough understanding of the Middle Ages and also I showed understanding of external information of other subtopics such as including information on towns and manors.
Lastly to show my understanding I asked questions of my own to go even deeper such as questions that related to different parts all across my project. Overall I created a piece of work I was quite proud of, which is unusual since this was a digital presentation. I spent a lot of time regarding to this project due to the question still always being there “what could I do to improve this?”
That’s where the cons come in. Due to trying to achieve the best I could at this project my time management was heavenly challenged and I’ll admit I’m not the best at it, or even being punctual. So trying to achieve exactly what I wanted and getting it all handed in by the deadline was definitely a challenge, but I learned ways how to do it. I create a plan that included all the due dates, keystones, etc, as well as I included time in my day to work on it and with that plan in the end I ended up finishing on before the due date.
Read more about the Middle Ages and more:
Now let’s talk about Maker:
My plan for maker is quite plan but there’s some things to improve. For growth I wanted to get better at my technological skills such as extending my knowledge of digital design. I feel I have reached this already due to in class we have learned to and used many new apps in living digital Desmond, photo shopping and book creating. Another growth was hands on building. In maker we created many things including handcrafted artifacts for a project. Lastly, for my support system I feel it already works well with me and my teachers give a clear guide of our intended learning.
For maker I wanted to overall get an extending grade and I achieved that. All of this was hands on learning which was fun and you had a different connection to what you were researching, instead of just writing stuff down and typing an essay, you were creating something that showed your learning.
Winter Exhibition/Pandoras Box
For this project I unquestionably felt that I extended. I showed I can work well and effectively in a group and collaborating with new people, for example meeting new people from different grades and working together to decorate our rooms for the exhibition. For myself my project was unique to me in that everything was from my imagination inspired from the movie Avatar. I created a box with many details surrounding it to ensure the meaning I was trying to give and it took a lot of trial and error. At first my box wasn’t the right size, I didn’t have the materials I needed, I kept burning myself with hot glue, but in the end I created a piece I was very pleased with. It showed the effort I put into it as well as meaning and the story that went along with it.
Lastly, the story, meaning and explanation of my box I gave a well understanding of and when I presented it to the public they understood and wanted to get even more information on it. They had relations and questions surrounding my box and topic and for almost every person I had a somewhat of an understanding with them and how their interpreted my box in their way.
This is my blog post for this project:
Making Interesting Images:
Out of everything I’ve done and learned this year, this project would have to be my favourite, mainly because there wasn’t a big amount of research we had to do for it. For this project I definitely felt I extended, not just on the actual project part but with my creativity. I created a visual presentation that incorporated photos of many different thing using the new skills I learned from my teacher. I learned all about lighting, angles, editing and way more. For the final part of this project we had to either recreate a past photo of yourself or you could recreate a historical figure, statue, photo, painting, etc. I recreated the Statue of Liberty, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the painting of Salome bearing the head of St. John the Baptist. I heavily enjoyed dressing up for these photos and presenting them in class; obviously I was nervous to present them but I got over it after witnessing everyone laugh just as I did when I saw them.
Read more about Making Interesting Images:
In conclusion through all of this work I’ve showed you, all of the things I’ve learned, all of things I’ve created, it all shows my growth as a learner this year. From the starting point of the year to right now, there’s hundreds of things I’ve learned and dozens of projects I’ve done that have improved my thinking and learning as a person, and in the future I aspire to go even deeper and acquire more skills. Which means getting more out of your comfort zone and because of everything I’ve done so far this year I’m prepared to do that.