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Month: April 2024

DI-ing to Get it Done Pt. 2 (Destination Imagination Provincials)

DI-ing to Get it Done Pt. 2 (Destination Imagination Provincials)

Skiing in the arctic, falling through a tree well, an underground society, a spirit from the past, an old engraved vase, a finding that changed the world, ARE YOU GETTING DEJA-VU?! This was my Saturday afternoon yet again! However, this time the stakes were higher because we were presenting in the provincials tournament.

What is Destination Imagination

Destination Imagination (DI) is a global academic competition. Teams of all ages develop solutions to challenges and present them live at tournaments.

To learn more about DI and my challenge read my post I did about regionals here: 

DESTINATION IMAGINATION REGIONALS

 

My Challenge

My Solution

“Luke! Didn’t take you all the way to the arctic just for you to sit and do your little science hobby! Be a real man and come skiing with me” This was the sentence that led to Luke’s great adventure. 

A nerdy boy named Luke goes on a ski trip with his father who doesn’t accept his love for science. While skiing Luke falls through a tree well into a preserved underground city. While exploring, a beautifully engraved vase catches his eye and a spirt from the past floats out of it  to tell him the rich history of the new world Luke has discovered. While trying to leave he hits his head and wakes up outside thinking it was all a dream until he sees the beautiful vase in his hand. Him and his scientist mentor research the vase using relative dating and they find out about the societies matriarchy and how they treated people of all genders equally. This new found information gave woman all over the world motivation that they can do something great, and taught Luke that he didn’t need his dads acceptance for him to feel complete because he has so many other people who fill that void.

What we Improved

Last month, we presented our solution at the regionals tournament, and after that, we acknowledged our FAILs and we made some changes for provincials. During regionals, we noticed that in our solution, there was some parts of it where you couldn’t tell where Luke was or what he was doing.  We solved this problem by adding a tree that we created with a branch, held up with a Christmas tree holder, with a sign that said ‘caution tree well’.  Also,
during regionals we had no way to stand up our puppet, so it was very hard to manoeuvre, we fixed this problem by adding straps to the back of the puppet so we could wear it like a backpack.

FAILs (First Attempts in Learning)

Nothing anybody ever does is perfect, and although provincials was our second more improved time presenting, there was still a few things that didn’t go so well. The stress of the competition got to my teammates and I, which caused a few of us to forget our lines. This occurrence was very disappointing in the moment, however, after watching the video back, it didn’t look sound like as big of a deal as I thought it was.

This taught me about perspective, the performance may have looked not very good in my eyes, but to people watching it, who don’t know the whole story, it looked fine.

What we Could Improve

If I were to do this project again, I would quadruple check that everybody, including me, knew our lines so well that we could do it in our sleep. We all did a very good job at memorizing our lines, yet we still messed up a few parts. I think that if we all were even more confident with our lines, when the stress got to us, saying them would be our reaction to the stress rather than forgetting them.

What Went Well

Although some of us forgot our lines, I think that our presentation went much better than regionals. We were much more confident which made the story so much more effective. Also, we were much more organized back stage, we all knew when and where to move the props around which made it look seamless. 

What I Enjoyed

During this project I really enjoyed creating somthing I am proud of, showing it to the public, and winning somthing for all of my hard work. This project was so rewarding, and really fun once I had a good understanding of the assignment.

Strategies That Helped

How might we employ strategies to solve a challenge? This was the driving question I aimed to answer while doing DI. I learned so many and used so many strategies while doing DI, here are a few that really stood out.

Teamwork Strategies

Some strategies DI taught me that really helped with my teamwork was to communicate. At the beginning of the project we had a lot of problems with teamwork, after noticing these struggles we decided to have a team meeting about our teamwork. We started to give each other jobs, set strict rules and deadlines, and play off of each others strengths, and this help our group work immensely.

Acting Strategies

Another strategy that really helped me and my team out was to be super hyper and outgoing as possible when acting. This helps to make the presentation look a whole lot better and more dramatic. 

Procrastinating Strategies

When doing any project it is very easy to procrastinate, and this is something my group and I struggled with a lot. A strategy that helped us get stuff done is assigning each other jobs that play off of our strengths, this helps us get stuff done quicker and have more fun while doing it.

What I Learned 

Destination Imagination has come to an end, through this project I learned so much, I learned how to communicate with my group when I have an issue. I learned lots of different archeology terms and ways scientists study ancient artifacts. I learned lots of problem solving skills and critical thinking skills when I had to revise props and the script, and work through issues. I also learned a lot about acting, and much much more. 

Thanks for following along on my Destination Imagination journey, to hear more perspectives on this project, visit my group members blogs:

Aiden’s Blog

Chloe’s Blog

Elsa’s Blog

Finnley’s Blog

Mid Term Reflections (MPOL)

Mid Term Reflections (MPOL)

My whole life, school has been relatively easy for me, follow the criteria, add a little extra pizzazz, and boom I had myself an an extending. When I stepped into my first PLP class 7 months ago I quickly realized that was not going to be the case. PLP has forced me to fully adapt the way I learn, and I fully believe I have grown as a student because of it. 

Statement of Learning

“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.”

Things I Struggled With This Term

Perfectionism 

My whole school career I have required everything I do to be perfect, my projects have to be perfect, my art has to be perfect, my grades have to be perfect. There is a lot of ways PLP has tested my perfectionism.

 First of all, none of the work we do is like elementary, rather than filling in blanks and answering specific questions on a worksheet, we do projects that force us to create our own questions.  This has really challenged my perfectionism because I no longer receive a “yes this is correct” instead I get “do you feel like this is correct?” There is no perfect answer!

 PLP has told me that nothing is perfect, because there is always room for improvement and revision. 

Also, I have found that we are often thrown projects last minute, this has been a very big struggle because now I don’t even have a choice to go as above and beyond as possible because i simply do not have enough time. 

From the very beginning of this year, this has been my main struggle. It is hard to go from easy work, perfect grades, and praise from my teachers to struggling to do the bare minimum. 

At the beginning of the year when I wrote my learning guide, I set a goal to put aside my perfectionism and focus on getting the job done. I do not believe I have met this goal yet,

In my most recent project, Mind Over Matter I really struggled with my perfectionism. We were assigned with creating a video game on scratch that demonstrated our knowlage of an atom. During the most of this project the only thing I was focusing on was the visuals of my game, as well as how many levels there were. I spent so much time on making the game perfect, that when It came down to the last few days I hardly had enough time to add the science into it. 

If I were to do this project again, I would create the game and the science first and then once I am done, if I have time, go in and add the final touches.

Teamwork

Another thing PLP has really tested, is my teamwork abilities. Teamwork is something I have always struggled with, I have a hard time trusting other people and often end up doing all of the work. This worked for me in elementary, but coming into high school, the workload is just way to much to do everything.

 

The teamwork in my first project in PLP, the It’s The End of The World project went horrible. We didn’t communicate well, there was hardly any work ethic, I was trying to make it perfect and the whole thing ended up falling into my hands.

 

After that, I made a goal on my learning guide to put more trust in my peers, know that I don’t have to do all of the work in group projects, and to not be the leader/director in every project. As I moved through the year I have done more and more group projects It has been my biggest ambition to improve. 

My most recent group project I have done is Destination Imagination I have worked so so hard to have successful and even group work and I do believe I have improved. 

It is obviously not even close to being perfect, at the beginning of the project we have struggled with people not doing their work and doing to much, and I still feel like I am the leader/director.

However, after noticing these struggles we decided to have a team meeting about our teamwork. We started to give each other jobs, set strict rules and deadlines, and play off of each others strengths, and this help our group work immensely.

Going forwards in the year, my goal is to go beyond my comfort level and trust my my peers, and continue communicate when I have a problem.

A Project I Didn’t Enjoy

A project I didn’t enjoy this term was Power Play And How it Started. This project was a long process full of many assignments that lead up to the final project of turing myself into medieval art that displayed the medieval worldview. I am not a big fan of learning about this kind of history and I think that was a big part in why I didn’t enjoy this project. Also, we learned a lot of our information through The Book of The Lion, which I really didn’t like because it was very hard to follow.

Despite not liking this project, it taught me a lot about who I am as a learner. I learned that the way in which I learn information has to be something I enjoy in order for me to be engaged and learn somthing.

A Project I Enjoyed 

My favourite project I have done so far is the Bon Voyage project. This project was full of all my favourite things, writing, indigenous history, and storytelling. For this assignment we were assigned with creating a story about the cause and consequence of European exploration and put it into an app called AR Makr all following the driving question, How can we use storytelling to investigate what sparked global exploration and understand its impact?

Through this project I learned new tech skills, critical thinking, and a lot about European exploration and the causes and consequences of it. I learned new tech skills while using AR Makr. I used critical thinking when I had to solve problems and learn the app. Also,  I learned so much about exploration, why it happened, and what it lead to. 

Goals

My goals for the rest of the year is to go through a group project and not do everything and control everyone. I am going to do this by going beyond my comfort level and trusting my peers and communicating my issues when I have a problem. Also, I want to start putting aside  my perfectionism, I am going to do this by focusing on completing the task at hand first, and then (if I have time) going in after and making it better.

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