Introduction

“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 would first like to say how great and truly engaging, fast, progressive and exceptional this year has been. I like to look at grade 8 as kind of a building year where I created and developed all sorts of personal skills and abilities in and out of school that truly shaped who I am as a person. I have learned better how to balance work and school, although this is still far from perfect. 

The DI Mindset

I would like to address DI first as a subject to reflect on because I feel it impacted me some of the most in the school year because I feel I have truly shined in it, and also burned and crashed. In DI I took charge as a leader in my group and allocated lots of the work, especially to myself. The result on my other schoolwork around DI isn’t as satisfactory. I think that because I worked so hard on DI that it made me put far less effort into my other schoolwork, and I felt burned out a little bit. 

At the beginning of DI I had a very negative mindset of DI, and I felt that it was going to be unsatisfactory, unnecessary and frankly quite mundane. I was very wrong on these things, and there was a lot of growth inside of DI as a whole. Because I mainly came up with the idea for the story in our group, I felt very compelled to work on it. Mind you our group spent a long time figuring out the perfect plot and story for a skit, and it payed off.

I found that when things started to come together in our group that I started wanting to be a leader more and keep putting ideas and help out there for my group, and this helped us work and perform in a coherent way. We all pitched in a ton for our DI, and all became one as we performed the skit, kind of giving the effect that we practiced it a lot more than we actually did. I learned how to communicate ideas effectively and build them with my group and that’s one of the main things I will take away from DI. I also understand now that it is more important to spend time on the base structure of a story, especially when this story is being conveyed to your group and an audience.

I was definitely surprised about how much a mindset can change your work ethic to do something, and can change how you look at something completely. I have taken this mindset into other things more as well, and have already seen results. It is a mindset that keeps you looking at life almost from a third perspective, and allows you to cope with failure better, think more clearly, and overall see life’s shine brighter. It has even helped me with having mood swings and keeping my mood more consistent. I would like to call this the DI mindset. 

The Trip to Alberta

Another very large thing provided by PLP that happened this year was our trip to Alberta in early grade 9. Kicking off the year immediately with a trip wasn’t a bad start, and I truly enjoyed Alberta and will always look back on it fondly. One of the main things we did in Alberta was study about how the geography of Canada has changed the worldview and pretty much the lives of its inhabitants. This extends far beyond a physical level of mountains being rugged, harsh places to live or traverse, or the cold, wet barren lands of Deep Cove. It was about how it effected our transportation, economy, diversity, hobbies and even cuisine. 

Because Alberta is such an exemplary state for the development and key landmarks of Canada, it was the perfect place to go to study this massively interesting topic. It made me come back to Vancouver still pointing out and being able to break down how certain things here might’ve been effected by the growth of western outdoors culture and factors like that which are very prominent in Vancouver. Even in Alberta we went on countless hikes, and viewed many of its beautiful mountains, which was one of my favourite parts. Lot of the work was focused on how specifically The CPR effected Canada, as it was very easy to see evidence of it’s influence in Alberta firsthand.

Reflecting on Reflection

As you know, reflection is a large part of the learning process in which you actually learn by understanding and breaking down what you have learned and look back at it. It is a core value of PLP, and is a valuable skill I have learned since the start of high school. The mPOL’s are not only a reflection of my learning, but are also a presentation, and a way I can take pride in my learning. I can look back on the past year and see progress and all of the ups and downs, but it is only with reflection that I can look at ways to magnify and build upon this progress.

Because PLP provides unique and valuable opportunities and experiences for learning and growth, it makes sense to capitalize on that through full conscious understanding of learning. This is why we do blog posts for every project, and therefore get more out of every learning opportunity. 

My Learning Plan

The Learning Plan is something we do in PLP at the start of the year but sometimes update it throughout the year. It states our intent for learning throughout the year and how we will improve on from last year. This is categorized through different learning proficiencies like Agency, or Engagement. My statement of learning intent made at the start of this year basically said that I wanted to utilize my iPads technology more in order to work more efficiently and to also have more agency for my assignments and handing them in on time. 

I wanted to have more in class self regulation with not socializing when the teacher is talking and disrupting the class. I think in all of these things I have seen growth and have continued to make improvement as the year progressed. The main thing I think I still need to work on the most is Agency and more specifically time management. This is because I often inefficiently complete my work, and although it is most of the time done in good quality with lots of effort being put into it, I hand it in late sometimes. This is something I will continue to improve on, as well as the other competencies in my learning plan.

Final Words

So far we have covered a few of my most impactful projects, and some of the main values and mindset changes that I have experienced and learned this year. I am happy our mPOL’s were not actually mid year because then I wouldn’t have had DI to talk about and present my reflection on it. It has been a great year so far and I cannot wait for more challenges PLP has in store for me to overcome. Thanks for listening!