Hello ladies and gents and welcome to this years first PGP portfolio post extravaganza. You are one heck of a lucky reader as you will be her as I dive into the details of my overall experience whilst in Alberta with my class in September. As this is a PGP post I’m really talking about how I worked and learned on he trip and how my habits of mind came into play throughout the trip. So what are habits of mind? Last year we covered all things to do with our growth mindset and how we can further build them upwards by using our mental skills and trying better to understand what we need to improve on. Every grade really focuses on one or two habits of mind. As a ninth grader, we are working on our basic impulsivity especially in class. In order to get an idea of where we really are with this we were assigned a reflection in which we would analyze our work ethic and habits in Alberta. So why would we choose our trip, wouldn’t we be more distracted when travelling than in class? I think not. When we are taken on these trips it is our number one goal to learn as much as we can despite our specific projects or groups. Our challenge is to always be listening, always be curious, and always be intuitive in every location. That’s basically all I need to look at. How impulsive was I during our trip? How did I manage learning in a multitude of different locations daily, going from one to the other at fast paces? How can this been seen and proven by looking at my work ethic and portfolio from the trip?

   Our itinerary for this trip was insanity. We somehow managed to get though every stop enjoyably and the entire experience was amazing. As you may have already read from my earlier post for our main project we did whilst in Alberta, we were split into seven groups for our videos. I was part of the wildlife group and had ample opportunities to gather information surrounding my driving question most of which involved being outdoors or in environments with a higher population of wildlife unlike downtown Calgary, an ideal place for groups such as tourism, students, or business people. I am someone who absorbs information a little differently than what would be considered normal. I tend to take a lot of photos that remind me or are specific to what I learned. While most of my peers take notes, or draw out their findings I only take photos, video, and recordings. That is one of the reasons I think interviewing strangers is one of my strengths. When branching from one topic to another I can instinctively come up with more questions on the spot. I have loads of proof of this method and how well it works for me. I think that the defining reason for this working so well with my learning style involves my listening skills and awareness of my surroundings. Here are a few examples of how I managed to gather a bunch of information at all kinds of locations, some of which weren’t even assigned to my group.

   Aside form our humanities video project, we made another two videos both for maker. One of which we started to plan for a week in advance by writing up a storyboard and call sheet for our groups. My group mates, Kaden, Noah, Kaia, and Grace, and I decided to go with a horror movie theme for our movie. With the location where we did the filming being a heritage ghost town we had plenty of ideas for a plot. Of course being immature 14 year olds we went with the classic satanic cult/purge storyline. We planned out our scenes and our locations for each. Having never seen the ghost town in person we didn’t really know what it was going to look like until we arrived. With the set up and amount of opportunities we had with each space we had to revise our ideas and change things up to adapt to the vibe of the town and the unfortunate weather. With this project I was excited from the start. When we first came up with our idea for a plot I was so pumped for the filming and I really put a lot of effort into the video. When we got to the ghost town I was already very exhausted and I find it hardest to concentrate and really put myself into activities with a focused mind when I’m feeling that way. I honestly don’t know why I was so tired I mean I’d had almost 2 solid hours of sleep while we were travelling in the morning. Nonetheless I persevered and found that for the first time I was really determined to give the project my all despite my exhaustion. Here’s our final product, something I’m very proud of especially for the first real video we’d done.

   Next up we have more humanities talk! Sorry to be enthusiastic but my absolute favourite stops on this entire trip were humanities based and were places in which I gathered a lot of data going towards my final video. the best days of the trip in my personal opinion spanned from the 17-21st of September. Honestly, I just looked at our itinerary for reference and I can’t even express how awesome this trip was. Obviously the previously mentioned days were my favourite but I still loved the rest. And yes, for whichever of my teachers is reading this right now that does include the morning you made us get up super early and go to Moraine Lake. That lake was insanely gorgeous so thank you. Anyways, I simply wanted to talk about how I managed to constantly be ready to learn whenever possible as well as enjoy the scenery and vibe of the trip at the same time. My best examples come from Beakerhead, Studio Bell, and Heritage Park. Being your resident music student, visiting studio bell was amazing. I really just loved this stop because of the museums instrument displays where I got to go play and listen to music, specifically Canadian music while doing a a scavenger hunt. Second to Studio Bell is Heritage Park. I absolutely loved this day because we spent a solid few hours in Calgarys heritage park which was almost like a method acting version of the ghost town. I say this because there we people within the park that made it seem like we had really ben transported back in time to the late 19th- early 20th century. There was everything from horse drawn carriages, boats, and trains, to a fully operating amusement park. Not even kidding I’m talking ferris wheel, carousel, bumper car amusement park. Aside from the insane amount of fun I had in heritage park we also learned about the building of what is now Calgary. I used a lot of the information I gathered here in my video and I found all of it really interesting. Finally, Beakerhead. In Calgary, there is an annually held arts and science festival in which artists from all over Alberta and some other provinces showcase some of the most extravagant art and performances I’ve ever seen. On the first night we walked around Calgary’s public library enjoying some live displays of light based art, something I found very cool. There was a lot of method and culture that went into the pieces especially using the spaces in the park and library  with an extremely creative view. The second night of Beakerhead loved so much. There was fashion shows, fires shows, mechanical sharks, fire breathing dragons, and insane 20ft tall sculptures. Surprisingly enough, I once again managed to find some piece of information that went into my final video and let me remind you, I was in the wildlife group. The only wildlife we actually saw was a stray cat, some crows, and a rabbit. 

   Finally I have to mention the one project that I didn’t really put as much effort into and I’ve figured out why. When we visited the Royal Tyrell Museum we were assigned a short informational video based on the data we gather from one exhibit. Being at the museum was really exciting and brought out a lot of my rather unfocused traits. My overall excitably can be the downfall to some of my work and this surely happened at the museum. We went from hiking through the badlands to exploring the massive museum in what seemed like no time at all and I realize looking back upon my effort for the video that I was a little distracted. Nonetheless I still completed the project meeting all the criteria it’s simply that I knew I could’ve done better if I’d had a better handle on my impulsivity and overall mindset that particular day.

Last year in Oregon I was much different. I looked back upon all of my portfolio posts from last year when reorganizing my blog and I have really picked up on the amount of growth I’ve had since last year. Yes, I do regularly lose focus or get caught up in something else instead of what’s going on in class. That is something I really hope to work towards improving on this year. When we talk about the habits of mind we typically refer to them by grade but I personally think of them as a way of individually looking at ourselves and recognizing what needs work. By the time my m-POL rolls around this year I want to be able to show my improvement from the goals I’m setting because of this post. PGP forces me to reflect on everything I do and it will continue to do so until I do it instinctively. I can easily say that in Alberta I had an amazing time even though we had to be at school at 6:15 on a Sunday. I like to think that between 70-80% of the time I was attentive as to what was going on school wise while also being able to enjoy myself alongside my peers. I recognize that there were definitely times where I could’ve done more or worked harder but I can’t go back and fix that now, I can only move forward and strive to be better.

   Salutations people, as my grade 8 year comes to a rapid close, days feel longer and I plead for summer break to come faster. This summer is going to be amazing and its like my patience has been thrown into a a blazing pit of fire, in other words they are no more. But since school goes on for three more days I have had a jam packed schedule. As you may know from some of my recent posts and the few more to come we have had so much to do lately from humanities, maker, and PGP, to scimatics and all of my other non-PLP classes. If you’ve been here before, especially around the end of January you may know about the infamous mPOL’s. Guess what, we have a year end version of that presentation, tPOL’s! (The exclamation point might’ve been a tad sarcastic.) So basically, tPOL’s are the acronym for “transitional presentation of learning.” It is simply a student lead conference in which I review and reflect on the past year in any way I (and my teachers) feel necessary. Let’s get started!

geralt / Pixabay

   When I started writing this I went off track for roughly 45 minutes just thinking about how I was going to actually put this into words. I had a hard time because after my mPOL, Ms. Willemse challenged me to challenge myself. Instead of formatting my tPOL the same as my mPOL, which was subject specific, I should just talk about my accomplishments, my improvement, my goals, and my failures. You see I failed when I started writing this. Why? I am only human, and I work really hard to be the best that I can. Sometimes I get lazy, my parents would probably say that I’m always lazy, but the only opinion that matters is mine. Am I meeting my self set standards, am I achieving everything that I can? If I can confidently say yes, then I know that I can go higher and accomplish more. As I already said, when I started writing this, I failed. I have some bad habits and I have learned to set goals to fix them. One of those habits includes overthinking to the point of procrastination. I tend to think about one thing and somehow spend and hour thinking about the infinite possibilities of how I could do it. That specifically can take a huge toll on my progress and work ethic because when you spend so much time overthinking something, it eventually turns into procrastination. My first and most important goal for next year, is to find ways to help myself stop with this simple bad habit. I’ve said so many variations of that sentence this year and I am still getting there. But like most things in life, change takes time.

Free-Photos / Pixabay

   Once I got back on track I took a look at some of the thought or sentence starters given in the shared document. The first starter asks, what I am least proud of this year. To be completely honestly, every single project that we have done this year has been something that I am proud of in more than one way. Every time I failed at something, I learned a valuable lesson. One project that I mentioned in my mPOL was the beginning of our winter exhibition project. This specific unit involved us creating an explain everything video explaining a portion of our worldview that changed recently. Mind your this project took place in late October through early December so it isn’t that recent anymore. During this project I became, almost lethargic. I didn’t want to put in the effort and I had no desire to even start the explain everything. I ended up learning an extremely relevant lesson that I’m very grateful for. After I started to flat out procrastinate, I just let the work pile up. It soon became a huge snowball tumbling down on me, leaving me stressed, tired, anxious, and frustrated in myself. This is really the only thing this year that has made me feel pure frustration. Whenever I get the feeling, “I don’t want to waste my weekend doing homework,” or, “why would I do my part instead of watching Netflix,” I remind myself of that feeling of overall disappointment in myself. I remind myself of the goals I set and the reasons I set them. This is one of the ways I have significantly improved as a student and person. I like to think of my PGP unit about setting goals when I need a bit of motivation. I find that if I find something that I want in my future, long term or short, it makes me feel like I have more power. More power to accomplish and achieve, to reach all of the goals that I set, big or small.

TeroVesalainen / Pixabay

   When I talk about work ethic, like most people you’d expect me to say that I have great habits. I know for a fact that some of my habits in and out of school are good for me and the people around me. On the other hand, I have some pretty self destructive habits that I have either overcome or have set goal to do so. Some of the best examples of my work ethic and habits, both the good and the bad come from my scimatics class. Math is a subject that is literally just repetition of steps and formulas with increasing difficulty and variables. I am not a mathematician but not horrible at math. I simply find that with some forms of math I have zero desire to even try. I absolutely hate geometry. I can’t stand integers and fractions drive me insane. I do however find algebra particularly interesting. I would love to improve my ability to listen to everything in classes like math and science even if I’m really not that interested in the topic at first. 

geralt / Pixabay

   So far I’ve mentioned scimatics, PGP, and (my favourite class,) humanities. Next is the big one. If you’ve been here before anytime from January to April, you are familiar with DI. Destination imagination was the biggest thing I think I’ve ever contributed to. I was so overwhelmed with the simple idea or DI when I first heard about it this year. To think that I would create something so magnificent that it coupled go to a global tournament was flat out insanity. That’s the thing, I spent so much time thinking about the idea itself that I didn’t take a good first look at it. It’s almost like I put on the wrong pair of glasses. I wasn’t reading it right. I constantly thought of it asan impossible thing that I myself, even with a team could not accomplish. And yet, well you can check it out here! When I stepped up to the project we just completed in humanities I thought of it as something unique that I could do. I could do. I could do. When I was introduced to DI I thought, how could I possibly do this, how? That was a bad mindset, one that was difficult too work with for myself, and I imagine my peers. After the initial launch of our ideas my mind began to set back into place. I opened up to endless possibilities that I would’ve shrugged at mere weeks before. Something that I cannot wait for next year is my second attempt at DI. Not only is the project fun and valuable to our way of learning, but I learned to look at things with a completely opened mind before even starting. With our latest and last maker project of the year I did that exactly. Blue sky has allowed me to make something that I care about with endless possibilities. To quote Ms. Willemse, “You could literally work on your blue sky project forever and still would fix everything you weren’t happy with. Most authors don’t read their own books after they’ve been published for that exact reason.” My teacher said that in class yesterday and I found it super relatable. If I could’ve worked on any project forever I would not stop until it was perfect, which it would never be. A huge goal for next year, in and out of school is having an opened mindset. 

   Combine each of the things that I’ve mentioned in this post and there you have a full lifetime’s worth of work and improvement. For me, I will use that lifetime to always improve. Accept criticism, challenge myself, take risks, and learn how to learn so that I can teach.

                                                                                               – Ciara ✌️

Hi guys, I’m back with one of the final posts of my Grade 8 year in PLP. Not only has the year gone by in a flash, but in what feels like so little time, I have learned a tremendous amount of things about myself. This post is all about the course that forced me to step back, take a look at myself and the bigger picture, and show me the endless possibilities of improvement. PGP, the acronym that stands for “Personal Growth Plan,” has been a huge part of this year for everyone in PLP. With a course with such purpose comes an insane amount of information that somehow interconnects. How you may ask? It is different for everyone. We are all at different places in our lives and how we work, change, and learn differs from person to person. In order to show that, we have done one final PGP project entitled, Time Machine.

   So what is Time Machine? Yes I know there are hundreds or variations from Back To The Future and Men in Black to The Terminator and X-Men. This version is more of an artifact that would go in a time capsule addressed to my younger self. In order to complete our course, we were required to compile all of the information taken away from the past year and put it into anything. Anything? Yes, we had the freedom to represent the things that we learned in any, physical or digital way we chose. It sounds pretty great at first but once you need to actually decide on how you will format the project, it becomes something of a daunting task. After a week or so of deep contemplation, I chose to make a video. I wanted it to be unique and not just a clip of me talking about what I learned. I fixed that issue with my ever so glorious idea to make my video a “FaceTime Therapy Session.” What do I mean by that? Good question. The video is edited to make it look like someone is on a FaceTime call with their therapist ( me ). I structured it this way because when trying to make my learning stand out I find that it works in this particular scenario. 

Pexels / Pixabay

   The next step is explaining why I chose to use this as my way of expressing my learning. Not in the technical way of “because it works best with green screen,” or “because iMovie is easier to use.” I mean the way that I connect to the video enough to make it show all that I can take away from PGP on a daily basis. The project outline requires a thesis statement, mine was simple yet informed. We weren’t supposed to write like Tolkien but to only outline the purpose your format would serve. “Habit 5’s listening specific portion really stood out to me as it involves a lot of stuff I can easily agree with, learn from, and represent using examples from my everyday life,” is my thesis and I got approved immediately. Along with the thesis, we had to decide which part of our course to focus on, goal setting, productivity, or the 7 habits. Each of these “units,” took up a semester to complete. We needed to find the one that we found is most useful, relatable, or relevant to our everyday lives. I chose to use Sean Covey’s 7 Habits, habit 5 to be specific. When making the artifact that would go into our time machine we had to give information on all of the units. I did so throug feedback the therapist gives her patient near the end of the video.

   Below is My PGP Time Machine Artifact Video

   The last piece of the big picture is the driving question itself. “What do I know now that I wish I knew before?” My answers are endless, but the things that speak to me so much are the ones that I use daily or are extremely relevant to my life. I am going to start with productivity. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have grown productivity wise in the past nine months. Last year I was a completely different person, at least in the way of handling my schedule and work. When I was introduced to Things and time blocking I was sceptical and admittedly a bit close minded. But since opening up to the idea of getting help and using strategies like those mentioned my entire experience with school has improved making me love it that much more. Honestly if I could have had these tools at my fingertips a year ago I would have probably had a different experience leading up to high school.

    Moving on to the 7 habits. In our last unit of the year, aside from this project of course, we covered the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens,” by Sean Covey. The book taught us about 7 different habits that can help us become happy, healthy, and more effective when building relationships, handling productivity, and becoming a healthily self. When reading the book we had to complete workbooks and a creative reflection per part. My favourite reflection was my last as it was fun to make and I really enjoy looking at the final product (see more below). When deciding what to highlight in my video for this project I chose to use habit 5, “Seek First to Understand Then to be Understood.” I found that the main outcome of reading this and doing all of the work with it was my understanding of how others use the tools mentioned throughout everyday. My video itself is entirely about the different forms of listening, which I chose because of how much I can relate to it and how relevant it is in my everyday life. The things that I wish I knew before even starting grade 8 would definitely be habits 3,5, and 7. Each of these represent huge things that go on in my life and gave me ways to fix them.

  Finally, the thing that ties it all together… Goal Setting! If I am being 100% honest, I have always dreaded goal setting. In elementary school we were told to make up a goal that we would like to achieve by the end of the year. Guess what that goal was never brought up again and seemed to be lost in time. I never like goal setting because my idea of it was flawed. In the sense that; Step 1: write down a goal Step 2: Achieve it. I mean come on people give us something to work with!!! In term 2 we started a new unit in PGP in which we read, “What Do You Really Want.” The book taught me how to properly make and achieve a goal, constantly reminding me what the next step is or at least how to make a goal ladder. Once I had learned how to set goals I felt much more confident in actually achieving them. This is the thing that really ties up my PGP experience because of how everything, 7 Habits and productivity can fit into this section.

Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay

   Overall, if I could really give this information to my past self I would be much, much different today. I personally think that it says a lot that with just one 10 month course I can learn all of this. This is the stuff that is going to allow me to learn all of the stuff in my other classes. I can now be better organized, listen to people properly, work interdependently (something I REALLY struggled with), and set goals. I think that my Time Machine Video really shows that, especially in the genuine listening part (near the end)!

Thanks again

– Ciara ✌️