TPOL Declaration

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.

TPOL 2024

Only a day left of grade 8! Can you believe it? 

As I look back on this year, I am amazed at how much I’ve grown not just as a learner but as a person. This year has been a drastic change in almost all aspects of my life, I have had to navigate through so many new experiences, and it is these experiences that have prepared me for grade 9. 

How can I showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP success behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?  This is the question I am basing my TPOL on. We were given a checklist to evaluate ourselves on the behaviours we show consistently, sometimes, and rarely, here are my answers:

I have chosen three success behaviours to focus on: agency, communication and collaboration, and self-regulation

Agency

First, I want to highlight my success in accepting feedback and making revisions. Revision is something that was a very big shock and struggle for me at the beginning of the year. My whole school career I have required everything I do to be perfect. Because of this I often hyper fixate on projects and work long and hard on them to make them perfect. 

The first project I ever did in PLP was the ‘It’s the End of the World’ project where we had to rewrite the song It’s the End of The Word as we Know it in a way that displays our worldview. I worked long nights in making my song perfect. After doing this I was introduced to PLP’s Idea of how everything can be revised. After working so hard to make a ‘flawless’ song I was asked  to change it. My immediate reaction was “NO!” I remember sitting on the table at home just staring at my song, my brain refusing to revise.

During my most recent project ‘The Wilderness Must be Explored’ I created an advertisement that I handed in. I later got feedback on how I could improve and revise my ad. Unlike the beginning of the year I fixed it up without struggle.

This is an example of how much PLP has helped me with my perfectionism, which is a ongoing struggle I have always faced.

 

Communication and Collaboration with Peers

Because of the many group projects in PLP, I have had to communicate and collaborate a lot this year, which has made me very aware on how much I have to work on it. 

I am a good group member when it comes to actively participating and doing work, however sometimes I participate to much. My perfectionism causes me to have a hard time trusting other people with creating work that is up to my standards which leads me to end up doing all of the work.

Here is the participation pie I created after the ‘It’s the End of the World’ project:

Although my communication and collaboration skills have grown over this past year, this is still a skill I continue to struggle with and I would like to focus on it as something to improve in grade 9.

Self-Regulation

Self regulation is something I have been struggling a lot with this year. I am a very busy person and have several commitments out of school, because of this I often find it hard to balance school and sports which leads me to often be very stressed. My stress is also an out come of my time management skills, I don’t have a hard time staying on task during school. However when I am trying to get work done at home, staying focused is hard. 

A project where I really struggled with self-regulation was the Echoes of colonization project. During this project I was in the middle of the high school mountain bike team and was frequently missing class. This lead to a lot of homework as well as a lot of procrastinating.

I am not very proud of this project, I was very rushed in doing it, and not a very present group member. 

In the future, when I miss school or have homework, I am going to have set times to do the work. This could be in the car to a mountain bike race, or just a time at home where my phone or any distractions are away.

Goals For Grade 9

This year has taught me so much about who I am as a learner and as a person. Moving onto grade 9 I want to continue to work on improving my perfectionism, I will do this by focusing on getting the work done, and then making it better or revising it after. As I continue to work on my perfectionism, I believe my teamwork skills will improve. However, I still want to work on my teamwork by going out of my comfort zone and trusting my peers. 

How am I Prepared For Grade 9

This year I have improved as a learner. I have made goals and strived to meet them. Although I have overcome so many challenges this year, I still have work to do. Having reflected on my year as well as created goals and how i am going to reach them, I have prepared myself for all of the challenges I will face in grade 9. I have a game plan and wont stop until I have become the best learner I can be.