How can learning from others’ career journeys help us shape our own?
This is a big question, as most driving questions are. In this project we spent the day in the life of a professional of a career we were interested in, to see if we were actually still interested in it afterwards. Luckily for me, I live with someone in the field that I want to go in (roughly). My mum is a nurse practitioner (which you’ll learn more about later), and I have always wanted to go into healthcare of some kind so I was really excited for this opportunity.
These are the big ideas that we set out to accomplish and understand:
Lifelong learning creates career and life opportunities.
Competency
😁 Communicating: I can communicate in appropriate and effective forms.
Understand how systems are a lifelong process which creates opportunities to reach goals and open new opportunities
Understand the relationship between career-life roles: post-graduation options, personal passions, work, family, education, volunteerism
Connect to goals and find work and study which would enhance them
Learn about support networks for future potential futurepaths
I can confidently say that I have fully fulfilled all of these goals. I have been researching admission requirements for psychology programs (the specific part of health I’m interested in) since December of 2024 when we did our marketing me project (read about that here). I had already learned all about the paths I was interested in and what it would take to get there in our previous project because I wanted to push myself, and that really paid off in this one. Throughout this project, I kept communicating with my mum and her colleagues at Canopy Health (the clinic where I spent the day). I have lined up more interviews past this project to learn more about the paths I’m interested in, even though it’s not required because this project made me realize how many people are ready to help you if you ask.
Thinking 🧠: Reflecting on Learning
I reflect on my learning to generate new ideas or reinterpret others’ ideas in new ways. I use my thinking and reflection to help me make decisions for my future.
This competency was reflected in both my Smart Brevity note and audio reflection. I used critical thinking to determine what was most important to put into both of my brevity notes so that they maintained detail without being overly long.
These are the brevity notes I created:
https://poets-find-fp9.craft.me/mslXQprQoKC2pZ
https://poets-find-fp9.craft.me/WnzjfCXgzDgSZR
I also created an audio reflection and will post it here as soon as it has been added to Spotify.
This reflection really pushed me. I will be the first to admit that audio is not my favourite format. I would choose to write 10 scripts over recording 1 five-minute podcast any day, but I am also someone who cares about doing well in school. This means that even though I hate editing audio you can bet that I will put everything I have into that reflection if necessary. I am very proud of the work I created, the audio is crisp, andthe story makes sense and is engaging. I think this is my best work with audio editing yet and hope to build on this skill in our new maker project which is all about podcasts. Yay…….
Last of all my VMV reflection.
I touched on almost everything in my last humanities post, and since we did these projects simultaneously, all of the things I reflected on about self-regulation and being engaged in the class ( I love English class and this project was so customizable how could I not be reliably actively engaged???). The one point I dont think I have touched on yet is these posts.
Over this past year, I have seen the quality of my posts improve drastically. I changed how I write these posts in the first semester and now find my progress across projects easier to track now. This makes sure that I dont get stuck on things as often. I am very proud of this progress, and as a result of if blog posts are now something I look forward to immensely.
We have just finished our first Humanities project of the year (and probably one of my favourite projects ever so buckle up, I’m excited about this). As someone who loves English classes I really loved this project, especially because we often focus more on social studies in humanities.
The driving question for this project was:
How do we use parody to bring the themes of Romeo & Juliet to a modern audience?
Theme is the whole reason you can make a modern version of Romeo and Juliet. Theme is what gives this play it’s heart, and withoutthe star crossed lovers, this play wouldn’t be Romeo and Juliet. At its core Romeo and Juliet is a story about inventbility, love and nativity. These are all things modern people can feel and understand as well as a person in Shakespeare time.
To bring this parody to life, our class made a play of our own. It was set in north vancouver.Our production was messy and chaotic but I do not think that this took away from my understanding and learning overall.
The main competency focus for this project was:
I reflect on my learning to generate new ideas or reinterpret others’ ideas in new ways, and use it to form reasoned decisions for my future choices.
I think I did really well with this competency.I thought thoroughly about the play while we learning about it, by reading aloud in class, watching videos about specific acts to make sure I interpreted them corrrectly and generally participating in class discussions. This lead to thurough reflection throughout the project.
Becuase I relfected so much, I was able to reinterpret the play quite easily. I worked really hard on the script we made for this project. I was able to think of representation for all of the elements in the play well.
Finally is the section on my VMV. This is a section I’ve added to my blog posts in an effort to both keep myself accountable (to ensure I keep growing as a learner) and to help my further self with POLs.
My biggest takeaways from this section that I have remained consistent with my engagement in class, which I already touched on. I also demostrated leadership int he group aspect of this project as a successful DRI, and provided positive feedback.
The biggest area of growth for me was self regulation. I touched on this in my last post for PGP, but I improved even more this time. I reached out for support when I needed it and have gotten better and better at lowering my stress and anxiety levels in regards to school work. A big part of this was Ms. Madsen’s teaching, she makes me feel confident and capable in the class even if I might not have been as successful as I would have hoped in a specific task. Thank you.
Overall, I’m really happy with what I contributed to this project. Even if the end product wasn’t project I learned a lot and that’s what’s important. Nothing will ever top Bromeo and Homeo for a Romeo and Juliet parody I’m afraid.
Hi again! It’s finally winter break, but before it started PLP 10 was hard at work on Winter Exhibition 2024. Our project was called “Marketing Me”, and its driving question was :
How might I present my passions, strengths, and learning to the world?
We worked on many different things to answer this, focusing on the curricular competency of analyzing: I can analyze ideas and supported conclusions, making decisions about preferred career pathways. This project also focused on the big idea: career and life decisions reflect choices based on exploring, planning, reflecting, adapting and deciding to find purpose and balance. I showed my understanding of these concepts in multiple ways across this project.
One of the first things we did in this project was write down our values. I found this so helpful for the later parts of the project. It made me think about the different career pathways I’m interested in. I know I’m dedicated, nurturing, curious, and open-minded. I care about learning and then using that knowledge to make the world a better place. This led me to realize that I am well fitted to my current intended career, which is to be an RN (registered nurse) or a psychiatrist. I have looked at both of these careers in detail as part of prepping for exhibitions. I know that both of these will let me keep learning for my whole life, push me and let me help people.
One of the events that really helped me with this project, that wasn’t even a part of this project was the VGH health care open house. I got to talk to many professionals about their jobs and to representatives from different universities. Through talking to all of these people I got to explore a lot of options and I’m so glad I did because the preparation of that made this project a thousand times easier.
But what did we do? In this project, we made business cards, and resumes (which felt kind of like infographics about ourselves) and had one-on-one interviews with eh teacher.
My most successful part was the one-on-one interview. I was really invested in it and prepared a lot, which meant I was ready the day of. I found it easy to connect in the conversation because my teachers had taken psych at UBC, which is my dream degree.
I also really enjoyed making business cards. I started by thinking of personal traits I wanted to convey and settled on a cat as a representation of that. They are curious yet cautious, and I don’t care what you dog lovers have to say they can be so friendly and loving! I also included a QR to my blog on the back because I want to differentiate my card from other people’s. You can take a look here.
An assignment that I think confused almost every student, was the resume. This was mostly because it didn’t feel like a resume. However, once I got the concept I really enjoyed this assignment. I enjoyed getting to use colour and it felt really great to get all of my accomplishments on paper. One of the big challenges in this assignment was condensing everything down to around 7 sections. These resumes were designed to be skimmed and cause the person reading it to want to ask questions which meant they had to be brief. According to the rule of 7 memory, the human brain can only hold about 7 things in its short-term memory at a time so we had to make sure there were only around 7 elements.
This is mine:
Finally, we made it to exhibition. I am so proud of what I created for exhibition this year. In every aspect of exhibition, I improved and grew from what I’ve done in previous years. One of the biggest differences is the amount of prep work I did. In previous years exhibitions have always been a push to the last minute (cough couch metaphor machines cough). This year it wasn’t. I managed my time effectively to have everything ready and polished day of. I looked at my schedule the week before so I could map out when I could work on my booth. I also planned out my booth based on what materials I already had and could reuse afterwards (because the amount of paper and materials that get thrown away every year at these things makes me so sad).
All of this shows how I’m fulfilling my VMV, especially in the self-regulation section which has been one of my biggest challenges pretty much ever. I reached out for support when I needed it (thanks Dad for the last-minute baking!), managed my stress and set healthy boundaries by still prioritizing “me time” in the week leading up to exhibitions. Who knew I could minimize my stress and still have a super successful product!?
Here’s what I created for exhibitions. The map in the middle is the careers I’m considering and what the path is to them, and the little text boxes are things I do for my mental health (creative hobbies, socializing, going outside and exercising). I put blueberry energy balls on the table (very good for you) and added many extra details for people to ask about.
(I have tried to fix the orientation it refuses to flip sorry!)See you next time!
Neko
This isn’t really a normal post, so bear with me. I’ve recently been reflecting on how I write this blog as we were doing a couple lessons on re-doing these blogs, and adding links to access them all over our Marketing Me Project. I really want this blog to present me in a professional, concise way while still being true to me. Here’s how this blog is going to change.
First of all, I am going to be focusing more on the competencies being assessed in the specific project we are doing. These are truly what is being assessed by my teachers, so I believe it’s in my best interest to assess myself on these in a clearer way.
Secondly, I am going to be comparing each and every post against my VMV, which is my “vision mission values” document created at the beginning of this year. It states the kind of person I want to be when I graduate and who I am right now. I am going to set aside a section to compare my actions in the project to this document. This will keep me on track, as in the past I’ve found that learning plans (the previous version of the VMV) gets forgotten after a month and if I do this it will not be forgotten.
Of course, I will continue to answer the driving question and use evidence to support my answer.
I’m back! This was our first project in PGP EVER, and I was really excited to do it. This project was based around the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. This books is centred around the idea of improving by 1% everyday. I really like this idea becuase it means that you still get progress but you dont have to put your all into every aspect of your life that you want to do well in. That’s just a recipie for burnout. After reading this book and doing manyactivities on it, we make artifacts to represent our learning. Read more to find out about mine!
The driving question for this was :
How can small changes in my habits shape my success this year, and beyond?
I implemented this through my artifact. I chose pick many topics from the book to show my understanding. My artifact was a desk redesign and I chose this becuase it was truly useful to me. By organizing and making this space welcoming it is ready to serve me for years to come.I did a really good job of picking an artifact that works for me, not just something that I thought would get an A. It’s been two weeks as of now and my desk truly has turned into a study space. Everything I outlined worked and I am very proud of myself.
I couldn’t just get there though. It took a lot of work. We did this project at the same time as a big humanities/makerproject which forced me to really evaluate what was worth spending my time on. This is really pushed me to time block to make sure I could get a proper deep understanding of the topics.
One of the pieces of this project was really awful for me. I have ADHD and because of that I’m very sensitive to background noise (listen to our class podcast The World Needs More Canada) to go through a simulation I made of this. We had two tests on this book. That first one was find. The room was quiet and I had had a good day so far so it was easier to bear. The second test fell on a bad day for me. I had had choir early in the morning, and likely French beforehand. This was not a good set up. As soon as I sat down to take it I started shaking. I have anxiety and it’s really spiked by tests, as I have a very bad habit of measuring my self worth against my grades. With my anxiety already running rampant, all of the little noises drove me nuts. I understood the concept completely and I think I wrote a good quiz, but everyone else was finishing faster. This made my anxiety worse. Add the guys next to me loudly whispering about brawl stars, and its no wonder I had a mini anxiety attack. The big takeaway for me from this was that I did go ask for the accommodations I’m legally allowed to have. I got up and was allowed to use my headphones for white noise which helped but the drama was already done. In the future I hope to advocate for myself in advance.
The core competency for this project was personal social : “I take purposeful action to support others and the environment, advocate for my rights, and take responsibility for my choices, actions, and achievements. I use my strengths to contribute to my communities.” I showed this by picking a project that worked for me. I advocated for my rights by using my accommodations to use headphones in the stressful test. I took responsibility for my choices by planning in advance for when I would make the artifact instead of doing it last minute and badly.
By adding all these atomic steps together I created a insightful artifact that fully communicated my understanding of atomic habits. My artifact will serve me for years to come to come and remain relevant in my life.
Hello and welcome back to another year of PLP! Surprisingly, I’m still here they couldn’t get rid of me. Our first humanities project was about why the world needs more Canada (why is our country awesome). This was prefaced with: the rest of your projects will be all about bashing Canada so we thought we’d start with something positive. This project was joined with maker so we wrote essays that we later turned into podcasts that you can listen to here:
During September we mostly focused on building our knowledge in English, how Canada presents itself on the world stage and current events in general. I really liked how we built our knowledge in a variety of ways because if we had just focused on one of these things I would have been bored out of my mind.
I’m an English lover. It’s always been a class I really enjoy so I was really excited when we had some separate days just for it as humanities normally combines the two. We analyzed a bunch of short stories and talked about them together. My favourite was Bread by Margret Atwood as I’ve read her work before. Something about her work makes you find a new meaning in a piece every time you read it. Having this in the project made me a lot more interested in it, meaning I put in a lot more effort than I would have otherwise.
Here’s how I dissected bread:
We also focused on current events. We were assigned to watch the national. This was surprisingly not as boring as I thought it would be (though my mum was the most excited about this). We also led thinking Thursday discussions where we would bring in our favourite story from the week and discuss it with a random group. Throughout the discussion process, I stayed very engaged, encouraging classmates to participate both when I was leading and when I was listening. I was prepared for the discussions because reliably watched the national. My own topic was new AI coming to hospitals in Toronto that lets healthcare workers. As I learn to live with ADHD (as in how I’m figuring out how to accommodate myself and find systems that work for me) I’ve realized that picking topics that I relate to helps me stay engaged and WANTING to learn more. I liked this because I’m looking into a career in healthcare and this could directly impact me later in my life!
The last piece of evidence I will touch on is the big one, the essay (or multi-paragraph composition). I struggled with outlining this because I was on a weekend trip and I thought I could outline it. I forgot that there is little to no cell service or wifi in the Cariboo so I ended up at the place I could get the best cell service. A tiny bench on the ranch we were staying on. Note: the Cariboo is cold in the evening in fall. At least I had a nice view.
My outline steered me wrong and if I had thought ahead and done it earlier I could have relaxed on this vacation. Luckily I did figure out how to get my essay working (I think) but I could have saved myself a lot of time by doing this organizer the right way the first time.
This project focused on the questioning core competency. I think I did really well with this because I am a person who is a questioner. Even to the point of why are we even doing this sometimes. I demonstrated this through the thinking Thursday’s especially.
Now, you’re probably wondering what my answer to the driving question is. I think it’s a complicated question. “Canada” is so broad with so many people with so many opinions that we’re unable to define as one thing that the world might need more of. If you think that all of Canada and the people that live in can be labeled as one thing, maybe relook at that because you’re probably stereotyping. When I look at my own topic (IEPs and Academic Accommodations) I think the world does need more Canada. This is one way we are ahead. Canada is often thought of as a good country, and don’t get me wrong I think that’s true but we still have a lot of room to grow. Overall, in many ways the world does need more Canada but in someways it doesn’t.
Overall I think this project went ok. It could have been better but I’m giving myself grace as it was the first one and I am still getting used to the linear system having 8 classes at once). I’ve had a lot of successes in this project and I know what I have to build on for the next one.
Keep an eye out for the related maker post!
Welcome back to another exhibition post! This was possibly my favourite exhibition so far for a multitude of reasons. This was the first exhibition that wasn’t a group project, and if you’ve read any of my other posts you would know that I’m not the biggest fan of those (I’m working on it).
Our project for this exhibition was on WWI. We were asked to create 20+ graphic novels, based on a real battle or event with a real or fictional character of our choosing. I immediately thought of my great-great grandmother Mabel Henshaw, a survivor of the Lusitania. I’m very thankful that I got to tell her story.
The driving question for this was pretty simple: how can I create a graphic novel that accurately depicts a scene from WW1?
I think the answer is time. You have to put in the time to find sources (I used family members and this website). You then have to put in the time to draw all the panels I eventually spent around 16 hours on my final comic (tracked by Procreate). I didn’t mind this though because I could listen to music or an audiobook while I worked which isn’t something you can do with a lot of tasks in this class.
On the day of the exhibition, everything was chaotic. I ended up being in charge of some stuff when teachers weren’t around. I got my own table though and drew my family tree and a big ship backdrop.
During the exhibition, I got to talk to so many people of so many ages, from a kid who already knew a shocking amount about the ship to someone’s grandma. I felt bad because I had presented it so many times it was hard for me to remember how tragic the story was. I kind of shut off my emotions so I wouldn’t get too sad while presenting.
I would call this my most successful project yet. I got to play to my strengths of writing and storytelling while trying something more difficult for me (drawing). I was enthusiastic about this project, and positive the whole time which is often hard for me.
Here are some exhibition photos
I also just really enjoyed this project. Something that I often get feedback on at pols is my lack of balance. I got to relax while drawing. I also got to schedule my work early, because we were told in advance how much time we had and what was expected.
Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert of 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 giving me feedback I can use to improve as a learner.
Ok now that that’s done with, let’s get into it.
This year we were asked doo do our tpol a little differently so I will be going over 3 of the PLP success behaviours. These behaviours are from the: agency, engagement and preparation sections. I chose these behaviours very carefully to show success, something I’ve grown in since my Mplol and something I intend on building on in grade 10.
Let’s start with My growth. The behaviour I chose for this section was “Outside of school ” From the preparation section, I marked myself as “Manages time effectively to meet deadlines and complete tasks, uses organizational tools.” However, even a month and a half ago I would have been put myself as “has a system to manage tasks but struggles with consistency”
At the beginning of this year, I was just trying to figure out what systems worked for me with my busy schedule, and I would find myself cramming often because I didn’t look ahead. Now that it’s been a while, two years of being a PLP learner I know how my brain works as a PLP learner better. In this time I have found the following strategies for myself.
-I am an early bird and am much more productive if I wake up early instead of cramming late and doing sloppy work. (Using my favourite music makes it easier to wake up too!)
I am busy and need to schedule my work blocks. I will build on this by using my calendar next year.
I need to compartmentalize my work when at home, moving locations (library, mum’s office just going outside instead of my room which is just asking me to be distracted.)
I strive for competition and can simulate this by setting a time-lapse of myself working (insert video)
Moving onto something I would like to build on in my grade 10 year. That is resilience. As a learner I care deeply about the work I create and when it gets deleted or a bad mark because I was rushed I feel incompetent. I need to work on sticking with it without giving up. Some days I just can’t be productive in class. During our nationalism project, I got so discouraged from not finding proper sources that I ended up staring at a blank iPad screen for almost 3 classes. Though I did eventually have a successful Video and project it was only completed by waking up early and staying up late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AHDawXtt2g
I am resilient in other ways, however. When I don’t do as well as I could have on a project I become even more driven to do well on the next one. I can very easily pick myself up if there is another chance to do well, to impress myself and others.
As soon as I went over the form I knew I wanted to talk about my enthusiasm for learning. I think it is one of my biggest strengths as a learner. As a learner, I crave knowledge and a complete understanding. This leads to me pushing myself to complete projects to the extending level I expect from myself. A good example of this was our WW1 project, where instead of making up a random story from a pre-decided list, I went through my family history to find a story that I wanted to tell. The result was an extremely detailed, personal, and immersive graphic novel which is possibly what I consider my biggest success as a learner thus far in school.
Another example of this was our nationalism project. As unorganized as I was throughout this project it did get done and I did create a product I am somewhat proud of. This is only because of my enthusiasm. I picked a niche topic (again) and connected a topic I felt little connection to to myself. I am good at connecting myself to all the things I am learning about.
Another thing to consider with my enthusiasm is how overpowering it can be. This connects to the balance sections, something that has been brought up by teachers at every Pol I’ve had so far. When I get really into my learning there isn’t much that can stop me from myself. I end up burnt out and exhausted. This is also due to how packed my schedule is. I have to squish in my homework time.
Though this sounds bad, and I don’t enjoy it in the moment it makes me stronger and more ready for the grades ahead of me. I know I’m doing more than the average student my age and I’m really glad I have made that decision for myself. Being involved in our school’s choir program is important to me, as is coaching swimming, playing piano, and spending time with the people I care about. I know how to fit everything into my schedule even if it is a bit much at times. This was shown in our Louis Rial project, it was a really interesting topic, but I found myself breaking down late at night because I felt like if I couldn’t get every thought and idea I had into my essay it wouldn’t work
I think my enthusiasm is there for a reason though. The layout of PLP is something I’ve been thankful for this past semester. The ability to choose parts of what I learn is not something I take for granted especially in comparison to other courses. I don’t do as well when I can’t challenge myself.
Each school I pick a word to determine the way I want to be. In grade 8 it was impression, to make a good impression on people in the school, and make connections to get my impression on PLP. This year it was been Excellence, to hold myself to a standard I could be proud of (which I am! This has possibly been my most successful school year yet). I think that at times the constant standard of excellence was a bit harsh, but it worked out well for me.
As I go into science this summer my goal is strength. Strength both physically and mentally with summer school and a goal of working out more. I don’t know what the word will be for my Mpol next year but I guess you’ll see then.
Thank you for reading/listening! See you soon with a post on our WW1 project!
What leads us to write as people? What leads people to rise up against oppression? How does Nationalism impact this? How do these three things overlap in the 1800s in France?
What nationalism though? Let’s start with the question who do you cheer for in the Olympics? It’s probably your home country, where you live or where your family is from. This is a loyalty to your nation. It’s the same reason we go to war for our countries. It’s the same reason I make sure people know I’m not American when I travel. Nationalism is a devotion to your nation. When the country people live in does not look like the one they want to live in, they will make a change for the good of the nation.
For this project, we made videos again. I found this pretty easy because at this point in the year, I feel like I’ve made thousands. I found a bunch of good visuals and managed to make 3 days of filming look like 1 (same lighting same time of day with blinds closed and same shirt and hairstyle), which isn’t even something I would have even thought of at the start of this project. I also found it helpful to write my script out and then put it into a diagram like this :
Once I got into the research I hit a block. Turns out very few people have studied this topic so I had to pick through a lot of sources to get the information I needed. Wikipedia was really helpful they have a really good page on the history of French journalism (here) that I used as my biggest source of information. Eventually, I regretted picking such a specific topic, but I’m glad that I pushed myself (something I outlined in my MPoL).
Without further ado here is my video
And Part 2
Something I will improve in my next project is my time management. Many days of class during work blocks I stared at my screen in a block not being able to get anything done until there was a time crunch. This just increased my stress and brought down the quality of my work
Overall I would consider this a learning project of knowing when to not bite off more than I can chew.
“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.”
I am like my cat Seymour. Hopefully a little smarter, he definitely couldn’t tell you a basic timeline of the French Revolution but we are similar even if it doesn’t seem it from the outside. However, I see myself in him sometimes though it may not be obvious at first glance. Here is a photo for reference (of him as I write this).
However, Seymour and I are similar. We both have short attention spans, neither of us can ever make up our minds (though he tends to focus on being in or outdoors) and we both have trouble getting out of bed to do stuff in the middle of the day.
I have decided to outline this blog post and presentation differently, by showing my learning through the 3 pillars of the PLP program, technology, travel and project-based learning. I have also added another “pillar” I consider vital to what PLP is. It’s teamwork because almost all of our projects have been group projects and as frustrating as they have been I have demonstrated much growth in this area that I’m proud of.
Let’s start with the obvious one, iPads and tech. I’ve pushed myself in this sector this past year, especially with the grade 9 focus on the moving image. I’ve learned new techniques, pushed myself taken risks and made multiple short films. I’m really glad we had this focus because it’s something I never would have thought to put the time into outside of school. I had the opportunity to see so many others’ ideas of how to portray stories through the moving image and it was cool. To demonstrate my growth here is the first video I created this Video, my “at-home video” from the storytelling in the Rockies project.
Here’s my most recent film from the Frankenstuffies project
And what I think is my best film from this year was created with Kennedy and Hazel (add links) “The Note” from our Thrill Us project in Maker.
Another aspect of the tech pillar I’ve grown in is using the apps available. Since this is my second year in the program, I know which apps work for me and keep me organized. I love notability, MindNode and of course things. These apps make sure I remember that projects exist and don’t leave anything to the last minute (although sometimes it still happens). I’ve cut down on stress using these apps because I can take notes in a way that keeps me unstressed.
In science this year for example I used the notability function to record audio of class in case I missed bits of when Ms kadi was talking as I took notes. Later when I reviewed my notes I realized I missed something important but I had it on audio.
Here’s an example of my notes
And My things. Things’ pie charts for projects are really helpful they drive me to close them because they’re unsatisfying, here’s the current things section for this post.
Overall I’ve done a really good job of using my iPad in a smart way this year and I’m proud of that. I get distracted by it sometimes like anyone, but I’m good at getting myself back on track and getting work done on it using the tools available to me. (No matter the amount of internet available. This brings me to the next Pillar I will address, travel.
Travel
We started the year in Alberta (or ‘Berta as Mr Harris calls it), and though that was incredible the trip was as was our trip to Loon Lake, I want to talk about going somewhere else that demonstrated my growth first.
Earlier this year, I got the chance to visit my elementary school and talk to the grade 7 students about PLP, explaining it from a student’s perspective. As I stood there all I could think about was how far I had come. I’ve changed a lot since I first even thought about PLP and I’m so glad I picked it. Through these two years (the time since I had that presentation done to me) I’ve grown as a person since then as a result of PLP. I’m so thankful to all my teachers for giving me this opportunity to share my experience with the next generation of learners and the chance to reflect on myself as a learner.
In September as I mentioned, we went to Alberta. This trip was around a week long and it was the longest week of my life but not always in a bad way. This trip pushed my ability to focus in more… difficult environments. Travelling in a group of 30ish people is no joke, especially when it’s a group of teenagers, your bus breaks down and everyone’s tired all the time. But at the same time, we were seeing all these amazing things and it was really important to stay focused on the learning of the trip. I think my book created on this field study demonstrates how I stayed focused and managed to have a complete understanding of the actual project throughout all the chaos. On our next field study, I would like to not get involved in the drama of the trip as much (since it’s bound to happen in our class) and stay even more absorbed in the learning.
The last trip we took, and my last one to mention was our trip to loon lake. If I were to describe this trip in one word I would call it transformative. I think we all changed this week in ways we didn’t expect and in the end, it brought us closer together as a group. Before this trip, I didn’t like group work with the people in my class very often. But this trip highlighted everyone’s skills and abilities in a way I didn’t see before. It made me more open to teamwork which brings me to my honorary pillar, teamwork.
Teamwork
I decided to include this because almost every project we’ve done this year has been a group project. At the start of the year, I hated group projects. Never in a million years would I have thought that a group project would be my favourite this year.
Throughout this year I have noticed how different dynamics work in group projects and my place in them. I tend to gravitate towards leadership roles because they feel like I can control what’s happening and make sure everything will be done on time, and correctly. It’s hard for me to trust group members in school because of past experiences when team members didn’t do their part of the work. It’s a hard line to walk, or when I should just let people face their consequences or pull their weight so the group doesn’t fail.
A project this was apparent in was the metaphor machine project. I was designated as the project manager and this put a lot of stress on me, but I’m thankful I had the opportunity to be in this role as it taught me a lot about who I currently am as a leader and who I want to be. In this project, I noticed that I have a system for dealing with conflict that doesn’t necessarily serve me as well as it could.
People approach group projects differently. I like to put my head down, get a good concept stick with it and work hard until it’s done. Other people on my learning team don’t necessarily share that process and that’s hard for me to process because then I get scared nothing going to get done. The system revolves around me getting other people to learn like me and I have realized this will not work in the long run, it’s just exhausting for everyone to be around. I tend to assign roles and then follow people very closely to make sure they’re doing it. And to be fair to me I usually do this when the person in question hasn’t pulled their weight in the past. This usually ends in me sending text messages the night before deadlines seeing if people did the stuff they signed up to do, panicking, getting annoyed and sending text messages that I will somewhat regret in the morning. None of this is good.
Since nagging people and outlining what they need to do doesn’t work, in the future I am going to be taking an “it’s your problem now” attitude, while still being available for support. Every group project doesn’t have to be pushing other people and I need to let go of my need for control sometimes. As I continue this year I will focus more on this and ask for more help, as outlined in my learning plan. I think this comes from my need to succeed but if I put in the work necessary, I can still feel successful.
However, I think DI went well for me this year regarding my learning plan especially. I wrote in it that I was going to focus on being confident working with older students and I was. I contributed and enjoyed not always being the leader. I meshed well with teammates, did my work and we came together in the end if not for the whole time.
Projects
Finally projects. Projects are where I feel I can see the most growth. Let’s start with what I’m proud of. The project that was my best this year was Louis Riel. It was a project we could do on our own which let me hone in on the learning. I was very organized, using my things effectively as you can see here:
I also participated well in class, I found the material early interesting. This was also a writing project so it played to my strengths. I did well in the analyzing exercises in class with whiteboards and watching videos in class. I also wrote a successful multi-paragraph composition which I’m proud of. It made me look forward to writing essays. This project made me realize that I’m good at putting things into words after analyzing them and I can’t wait for more opportunities to grow that skill.
A project I’m not proud of was the videos I created at our Alberta field school. I was exhausted that week and I should have taken care of myself better so I could produce my work to my standard. I say my standard because I still met the proficient standard but I feel I could have done better and I wish I had pushed myself more. This is proof to me that I still have stuff to work on from my learning plan from the start of grade 8 where I said I was more confident in writing and I still have a lot to learn about with other media. though I have grown my video skills this year they can still be stronger. I want them to be at my writing standards, which is as easy as walking for me.
I’m next going to talk about Science which was successful for me this year. Isn’t the past I’ve struggled with having motivation in science as it wasn’t very fun in elementary school, leading to me having a fixed mindset of not linking her class until last year. This year however I pushed myself in Ms. Kadi’s class and created a lot of work I’m proud of, which led me to my current career plan. On my first RC, I got proficient. That wasn’t enough for Rome and I’m proud of how I pushed myself to extend in the second quarter of the year. My agency is really strong and that’s demonstrated here. I am currently extending my learning plan goals in that sector.
I demonstrated growth by making a video after being told to take risks. I chose this because as I’ve said before, videos aren’t my strong suit and I wanted to push myself. I was fully aware that that idea could fail. I also wanted to create an accessible option on that project because it felt like something I could do. I’m going to try to make my blog more accessible in the future by recording audio versions of my blog posts. This was inspired by a talk my dad did on this at a conference a couple of years ago.
This is also proof of my engagement. I pay attention to the feedback my teachers give me, it’s the only way I’m going to grow. Even if I can’t always tell what an academic risk is I’ll keep taking them.
Overall I think Grade 9 has been very successful for me so far. I applied feedback to my work and got straight “extenings” on my semester 1 report card. I worked hard for that and got the results I wanted. Even though it probably won’t happen again, it gave me the confidence to keep working hard. It proved to me that hard work pays off. I would say I am currently proficient or extending in all of the success behaviours of a PLP learner and I’m proud of that (#fillingmywaterbottlebeforeclass).
