“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.”

At the start of the year I said that for this course my goal was to achieve a 92-95% grade. Now that we have reached the end of the year, we can look at the progression of my grade. My “midterm” grade for this course was 90%, and my midterm for this most recent semester was 92%. I’d say that this year was a positive year for me, but I always have things to work on, so let’s get into it.

In my MPOL my main focus for improvement was to step out of my comfort zone, especially in socratic seminars. During the seminars about Hiroshima, I was disappointed with my level of participation. Entering the second semester of this year, I’d say that my biggest goal was to improve my performance in socratic seminars. I definitely improved during these last 3 seminars we had. I don’t know if it was the reduction in seminar size, or if I had prepared for these seminars better, but I felt much more comfortable speaking in front of others. I felt more relaxed as well as confident in what I was saying. My biggest problem in prior seminars was second guessing my ideas, which stemmed from a fear of judgment by others. In these seminars I wasn’t as worried about being challenged, and I think something that helped that was I kept trying to back up my points with references to the text, which not only improved the point but also helped my confidence in the seminars. I think my biggest example of positive growth this year would be the socratic seminars.

It was a pretty good year for me overall, but I would say that the biggest thing I can improve on for next year is still just deep thinking. It was a goal I set on my learning plan at the start of the year but I don’t think I am at the level of thinking that I want to be at. The socratic seminars definitely helped me with idea generation, but I still have trouble thinking and creating my own opinion about a text on the spot. Something I want to try next year is really getting into craft and zettelkasten. It was kind of on and off for me this year, but if I get into the habit of making permanent notes, that practice could help me with my creative thinking.

Now in regards of the Spring Exhibition, there were positives and negatives. Its the end of the year and I think I kind of slowed down in terms of effort. I enjoyed doing research on Robert Dollar, but if I were to do this project again I should’ve tried to interview somebody. I wasn’t incredibly proud with what I presented at the exhibition, but that might’ve just been because I was beside Brenton and Jakub. I think my idea of what I wanted to make was good, I just think the execution was not very good. Something I am proud of is the thinking that went behind the portrait. There were three different reasons for why I used a tree, the only thing that wasn’t strong was the town on top of the tree.

This year was definitely a strong one, even though it had its rough patches. I set my goal of 92-95%, and I succeeded in meeting it. My main focus point coming out of my MPOL was to step out of my comfort zone and I am proud to say that I successfully worked on this throughout this semester. I improved my confidence in public speaking through the socratic seminars, and I stepped out of my comfort zone by choosing to build my portrait out of clay even if it didn’t totally work out the way I wanted it to. I have a lot to be proud of this year. I am most proud of my persuasive writing piece about caffeine, which actually successfully convinced him to stop drinking energy drinks. I am also quite proud of my choice to take a main role in our Macbeth film. It was a major risk and I am quite happy that I took it. My risk-taking improved a lot this year. Next year, my main goal for improvement will be to take more leadership roles in group projects. I shied away from the opportunity to take a main role in the production of our Macbeth film, which is something I regretted and was part of the reason I tried to take a main role in acting. I was disappointed with myself for not taking the chance to be a leader in that project, especially because it was one of the few projects I actually had the chance to collaborate with others on this year.