Tpol 2023

Hello and welcome to my TPOL. “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.” For the TPOL I am going to be answering three main questions. 1st question is what have I most improved on this year. 2nd question is in what project did I learn the best lesson. 3rd what I need to work on to become a stronger learner. Answering these questions will prove why I am ready to move to grade 9. 

 I think the thing that I improved on most this year was managing my time. If I’m going to be completely honest with you, I probably don’t use Things and Calendar as much as I should. Using these apps more might make it more helpful to manage my time. For me when I use the app, I put the information on things, but I forget to update it and mark it complete or look at it. I find what works best for me is I just like to look at my schedule for the week. I will see what sports or activities I have for that week. Then I see what work I have due. If something is due on Tuesday and I know I have softball on Monday. I’ll know I have to work on it on the weekend in order to be able to hand it in on time. If there is nothing due soon and I have extra time, I can then see when I might hang out with friends or do something else I enjoy. considering where I was at the start of the year, I think I have come a very long way. I think the Radical Innovations project with ms. Willemse really helped me with my time management skills. I do many activities outside of school such as softball,  hockey, basketball. Sometimes I do find it challenging to do the things I love while working on school. Although it is challenging, it is something that I need to learn. As I get older, the work is just going to get harder, and I will have even less time to do the things I love so its good to start practicing now.

 

The thing I am most proud about was my winter exhibition project. I think that in this project I showed how creative I can be. I used many skills that I had known before, and put them into this project. I put a lot of time, effort, planning into the project and the display at the exhibition. Looking back after doing the spring exhibition, I realized how much better the design was, how much smoother it ran, and how our group got along with each other better. I do think those are things that I took for granted of until I had done the spring exhibition. My actual project for the winter exhibition, I was very proud of. I thought that by using the lights on the tree, it really came to life. The string made it actually look like the tree as well. I was very happy with how much detail and how much I focussed on the little things. I think that’s what really made it stand out. This project also taught me how to overcome challenges. Challenges like, on the day of the exhibition, someone flipped my box over not realizing that it was facing the right way. Many of the things that were in the right place moved around. Somethings got ruined. But I had to find a way to make it work. I had to find a way to be able to present it, because I had to present it. This project really taught me how to be flexible and when something doesn’t work or something goes wrong, you can’t just give up. You have to find away because not everything is going to be perfect but even when it’s not perfect you have to make it work. This is an extremely important lesson I learned that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

 

 

I think something I can do to become a stronger Learner is trusting my classmates. When doing group projects I like to take control and I tend to tell my group mates what to do. I have high expectations for myself and the work that I create. I know that some people that I work with don’t have the same standards for themselves as I do. I find that when I ask someone in my group to do something it doesn’t always come out how I want it too. Maybe they cut the line crooked, or they forgot to add something, or it just looks choppy but the work that they produced wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be or as I could’ve done. I then try to fix every single detail leaving me with all the work. I think in these group project settings I need to be aware of who is in the group and give them jobs that fit their skill suit. I also think I need to not worry about the tiny details and this doesn’t mean not care how it looks, but is someone really going to notice that the bottom edge of the poster, nearly touching the ground is crooked? Probably not. I think a great example of when I did not trust my classmates, and was very picky on all the details was the spring exhibition. Looking back on it. I was very stressed out about this project. Mainly because I felt I was doing all the work. This is because I wasn’t necessarily doing all the work but I was doing more work than I should’ve.

 

Thank you for listening. I am ready to move to grade 9 because I improved, struggled, challenged my self, and grew as a learner. I hope by answering these questions and reflecting on my year in grade 8 I am ready to move to grade 9. I hope you enjoyed listening to my tpol and I hope you have a great rest of your day!