Tagged: 2022

It’s That Time of The Year Again – mPOLs 2022

“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.”

Hi there, welcome back. Today’s blog post is about a yearly tradition amongst PLP, mPOLs. Although we skipped last year due to Covid-19, I am ready to reflect on my growth as a learner so far this year and what I can do to improve myself as a student before the end of the school year. 

My Learning Plan

Something new from these last couple years is what’s called a Learning Plan. Near the beginning of the year, we filled out a statement of learning intent, plans to accomplish goals and choosing “Profiles” representing different levels of certain Core Competencies that we hope to have achieved by the end of the year. At this year’s mPOL, I will be discussing some of these competencies and wether I think I have improved so far in them or not, as well as discussing aspects of learning such as, revision, teamwork, responsibility, and production of high quality work in my Humanities class. 

One thing I’ve been working on this year so far is Communicating. More specifically, speaking in front of others in a confident and engaging way. Speaking in-front of people has always been a bit of a struggle for me, especially these last couple years, which is why I find it as something very important to be striving to improve on. By the end of this year, I want to have become much more comfortable and confident when communicating in-front of peers, classmates or anyone in general.

Presenting my “Playlist of My Life”

So far this school year, I believe I’ve shown improvement in this competency already. I felt much more comfortable when speaking in front of my peers about my “Playlist of My Life”. Not to mention, I knew my presentation by heart and hardly needed to look at my notes, as well as managing to keep my audience engaged. This was also the case when it came to presenting the idea behind my conceptual art piece at the winter exhibition. On the other hand, an area for improvement when it came to this competency was our class Socratic Seminars. Although I have improved much on my analysis skills which would give me more confidence when it comes to my ideas that I would share, it would still be quite challenging to me as it involves sharing personal opinions in-front of my classmates. Yet, the only way to improve in this area is to go out of my comfort zone as much as I can, which will be then again be pretty challenging, but something I’m definitely willing to do. 


The next thing that I’ve been working on this year is Collaborating. This means that I can not only confidently work with others, but can also take on a leadership role, and do a good job doing it. – ie. being open to new ideas and possibilities, as well as understanding that there is no “right” way to do things. Furthermore, one goal that I’d like to accomplish by the end of this school year is to further improve my leadership skills and to take on leadership roles more often. 

Picture from our Political Party Ad

Now for this competency as well, I have shown aspects in which I showed leadership – the politics project and winter exhibition. However, it’s not the level in which I want to be. What I’d like to do is to create an even deeper understanding of my strengths and flaws in order to build an authentic leadership style that fits best with me – in order to be the best leader I can be. This also means demonstrating qualities such as flexibility, open-mindedness and creativity. 


My Agenda

As I’ve been talking about competencies that I’ve shown and would like to continue improving in, I’d now like to talk about something I’d like to “celebrate” – and that is keeping very organized and making sure I stay motivated and disciplined. This could also be connected to the “Personal Awareness and Responsibility” competency. In the past year, I have figured out what I want my future to look like, which I think has made it slightly easier to keep up the motivation to stay organized and determined – especially since I want to go into the medical field, so this is a crucial trait to have in med school. I think this has always been a trait that I’ve been very good at, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had times I’ve struggled with it. I’ve had weeks in which I’ve felt very disorganized, which lead me to feeling more stressed than I would’ve been.

When it came to completing my four final analyses for my “Playlist of My Life”, staying motivated and organized was essential. I had four days to complete them all, with things such as soccer and work to also keep in mind. Now this was something everyone in the class was assigned to do, but it was an accomplishment for me. I usually spend way too much time than necessary while working on assignments that involve writing, as I excessively re-read them many times to make them as good as I can possibly make them. I still think this is something important to do, but not to the same extent. That weekend, I was able to find the right balance, and with that I learned to be much more efficient with my time when it came to writing assignments . 


Part of my Zettlekasten

Now that I’ve already answered the driving question “How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?”, I’m going to answer the next one – “How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?”. In summary, I hope to reach the levels of “Communicating” and “Collaborating” in which I set in my Learning Plan at the beginning of the year, and stated in this presentation. I will however strive to take my organization and determination to the next level by bumping up 1-2 “profiles” – where I’ll be able to take responsibility for making ethical decisions and become even more self-aware of my own strengths and flaws (which also ties into improving my leadership skills). In addition to staying organized and efficient, I’d like to take more time into using my Zettlekasten, as it will be beneficial to future writing assignments.