Hello everyone and welcome to my first tPOL. This has felt like a very long and tiring year but we are finally in the the homestretch! Because it is the end of the year, it is time for tPOLs. In this post, I will be answering the driving question which is, Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level? I will also be talking about some of the projects that I have felt the best about and some that I either disliked or didn’t do very well in.

Failing

I already talked about failing and what it means in my mPOL but I think it is a very important thing to think about and remember for any project I do.

FAIL stands for The First Attempt In Learning. I think as humans, we only see the bad side of failing, although it may be hard and annoying to fail it is actually a very important part in learning. To be honest, I am still not that good in accepting this truth. I am the type of person who wants and expects everything to come very easily to me. Before I joined PLP, I very rarely failed because the projects weren’t that challenging and everything came quite easily to me. Joining PLP has caused a lot of frustration  but also a lot of room for me to grow and develop in that area. I know for a fact that failing will happen to me many more times in the future but now, I think I wont be as frustrated when it happens because I know its okay and normal in the learning process. This answers the first part to my driving question, I think I’m ready to advance to the next grade level because I am starting to realize that failing is okay and good because it means that I am learning. I think this is a big step in my learning adventure and a really good lesson to have for the rest of my life.

DI

Again, I already mentioned DI in my mPOL but I think this is the best example of failing that I have encountered this year. Even though I did not enjoy the experience one bit, I was able to use my critical and creative thinking skills to come up with solutions when our original plan failed (which was a lot). At the time, I was not used to failing at all so it caused a lot of anxiety and frustration at the time. Now, after I have had a lot of time to think and reflect on it, I realize that it was the beginning of me learning about failing and that it is okay and just a part of learning.

Critique

when I was in elementary school, I was always pretty good at taking critique from authority figures like coaches and teachers but never with my peers or classmates because I thought I was better than all of them (pretty sure I was). At the end of my PLP year, I learnt that getting critique actually improves your work a lot and can make your life a lot easier. During the year, I learned how to give constructive criticism and how to take it and apply it to my work in an impactful way. I think this is another example of evidence that proves I’m ready to advance to the next grade because getting constructive criticism is something that I will encounter thousands of more times throughout my life and is a really important life skill to have. learning how to apply criticism into producing an even better project is something that I will be using a lot throughout grade nine and something that I think is necessary to have to be in that grade.

An example I have of using constructive criticism to improve my work is the Renaissance project.

Over the course of this project, I was always asking for critique and constantly adding more or taking things away to make it better. Even when we weren’t asked to receive critique, I was constantly asking friends, family and other classmates what I can do to improve my visual. I am also proud of this project because I feel like I expressed my ideas in a clear and visually appeasing way and it was enjoyable to work on.

The next project I want to talk about is the ultimate design challenge in scimatics. The ultimate design challenge is a project where we were asked to create a 3D object and calculate its total surface are and volume. I think I was able to use my time very wisely in this project and I was super efficient with getting it done. I am very proud with the pool that I made for my 3D object and the calculations I had. I think this project is a very good example of how efficient I can be once I get into a project. The reason why I am so good at doing this is mainly because of swimming. I think it taught me a lot about how to motivate myself to get work done even if I didn’t want to which resulted in me barely ever procrastinating. I know this skill will be vital for advancing to grade nine and all the grades above that.

Over the course of this school year, I was able to grow and develop some really important skills for my future. Although this wasn’t the most enjoyable school year I have had, I am still really grateful to have been a part of this program and I know all of the skills that I have mentioned today will help me in the rest of my years at school and in the real world.