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.
So what is a TPOL?
A TPOL is a transitional presentation of learning. In these TPOLs, students showcase their learning using work we’ve done this year to prove that we’re ready to move onto the next grade. They demonstrate opportunities we have to progress as a learner for the years to come. TPOLs usually occur at the end of the school year (Mid to late June) and are student lead conferences between the student, a teacher, the parents, and sometimes more guests, similar to MPOLs.
So let’s hop right in! First I’m going to talk about My goals for this year. My goal for humanities is to get accomplished, whereas for Science and Maker, I was aiming for extending. The reason I chose these goals is because I wanted to push myself in subjects that I enjoy and am good at.
Something that I think I could have done a better job at, as I mentioned in my MPOL, is the first PLP project I ever did. “From the Outside(rs) looking in” is the title of the very first project I did in humanities. In this project, I read “The Outsiders” and did many small assignments along the way. I was quite slow on many of the assignments and not because I was putting a lot of care and effort into them. I think I wasn’t ready for PLP as it is a big jump from what I was doing in grade 7.
So, if that’s where I failed this year, then where did I succeed? I think I did a very good job on my Mind over Matter science project (Especially the final product). The final product for this project was to code a video game using scratch. I had used scratch for many things in the past, but if I’m being honest, I forgot about it’s existence, so this project reintroduced it to me. It wasn’t hard to get re-used to and with my experience on the platform, I quickly coded a unique game that I was very proud of, before helping my classmates with their’s. Check it out here! Since then, I’ve coded 2 more projects on scratch for fun that you can check out here and here. (The two games I’ve made require a keyboard to be played, for now at least.)
Another area that I struggled in this year is reflecting on my work. A big part of PLP is learning from your failures and sharing them with the world in things like blog posts and POLs. This is hard for me because I find it easier to look at facts than to reflect. I’ve looked at TPOL blog posts from PLP students in older grades, and many of them talked about struggling with reflections and blog posts, so it seems like a common challenge.
So, What does my work reveal about me? To answer this question, I’m going to take a look at my first science project this year, Small but mighty. I think I did a very good job on this project, as well as my other science projects. This shows that my work is better when I connect more to the subject. I’ve always liked math, science, and making stuff, and when my work can relate to the things I enjoy, I will produce a better final product.
But for the first part of Small but Mighty, I think I did even better than I would on a normal science project. Why? Because there was just the right amount of space for creativity. The immune system character cards weren’t like worksheets with one correct answer, or something where I had to design the entire thing. It was the perfect in between. I got to draw and customize my own characters while having a rough outline I could follow. Getting to choose what characters to use let me incorporate more things I like (In this case, Pokémon), and make puns and have fun describing them in a way that works for the immune system organism that I’m using them for, but also based on what they look like.
That said, one of my goals for next year is to be thinking about the assignment ahead of time. For example, in my Oregon Coast Field Study journal, there were some places I went to where I had to take pictures or videos for my journal, but I didn’t always check to see what I had to do there, so I ended up not having all the pictures that I needed. If I had been thinking about the assignment, it would have been way easier to complete. That’s one thing I want to work on for next year.
Speaking of the Oregon field study, it seems like a good time to compare my first project in PLP with my most recent one. For my most recent project, I was assigned a business that I was going to visit in Oregon and make an ad for. I did some research on my business (Clark’s Restaurant), before going to Oregon where the plan was to go to Clark’s, and interview their owner. Instead, I went to a band Cabaret, where I played music for the entire school. I gathered information from my group members, who did get to go to Clark’s, but I didn’t get everything I wanted. With the limited information I had, I started making an ad for the spring exhibition. I was also pretty slow on this project, but this time, it’s because I had a lot of drafts (9). I put a lot of effort into each draft, and they got better and better each time. I think my work improved drastically since the start of the year. I was very proud of the ad that I presented at the spring exhibition.
Also, at the exhibition, I did the grade 12’s tour, and I really enjoyed it. It really inspired me, and I can’t wait to do something like it in the future. Over all, I think my first year of PLP was a good experience. I’m looking forward to being a member of the PLP program again next year.