Hi, I’m Erin and welcome to my blog! I am in grade 11, and a PLP student at Seycove Secondary. This is my blogpost for my TPOL.
What is a TPOL?
TPOL’s are what we do in PLP instead of parent teacher interviews, they are a 7 minute presentation, directed by the student and presented to our teachers and parents. TPOL stands for transitional presentations of learning. TPOL’s happen at the end of the year and are a chance for us as students to present and explain why we are ready to move on to the next grade level. We discuss what went well in the year and what didn’t go so well in the year. We show our growth as learners and share how we failed and what we learned from failing. Before we start we also have to make the 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.”
Hope Within Communities
The first project I wanted to talk and write about was one of my more recent projects. I wanted to start with this project as I feel it was one of my strongest projects from the year. In this project and unit we talked a lot about what makes a story of hope. To have a story of hope is to have a story of overcoming adversity, surviving, showing resilience, and having hope for the future. In class we learned and talked about how in a story of hope you can’t have one trait without the other. To have hope is to have a reason to overcome adversity, be resilient, and survive. We had a lot of in class discussions about how we can’t have one without the other and how they all connect. For this project we then had to create a video connecting three different stories of Hope. I chose for this video project to show a story that was very close and meant a lot to me. Sonia Ellis was the late studio owner and artistic director of Seymour Dance in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Sonia was someone I knew personally. She taught me and many others dance. She shared her love for dance with everyone and believed anyone and everyone deserves to experience the joy of dance. Sonia was diagnosed with brain cancer and passed away in 2018. The community came together in a way I’ve never seen before. Everyone one came together to celebrate Sonia’s life and keep her dream and legacy alive. I connected this personal story with two other stories. The Texas Tower Shooting 1966, and The Oklahoma City Bombing. I connected these three stories together as they all showed a story of hope within a community. All three stories showed a community overcoming an adversity, survival, resilience, and hope. I think the reason why this project felt like one of my best projects from the year was because I had a personal connection to it. I find that my work comes together a lot better if I find a connection to it.
Macbeth
The next project I wanted to talk about was the Macbeth project. I talked about it in my MPOL as well but I think I should bring it up again. In the Macbeth project we focused a lot on timeless themes. Timeless themes are themes and topics that we as humans will forever be able to relate to, therefore making them timeless. Some examples are themes like love, death, power and corruption. Shakespeare and the creators of “Avatar” used a lot of timeless themes. Timeless themes were how we connected “Avatar” to Macbeth. We did a Macbeth project for the winter exhibition. We had to perform a scene from Macbeth and create our own adaptation. For my scene adaptation I decided to perform a contemporary dance. The reason why I wanted to talk about the Macbeth project was because I think it ties into the Hope Within Communities project. I think Macbeth was also one of my stronger projects from the year, and I think it was simply because I had personal connection to it as well. Dance is something I love and I am so passionate about. Being given the freedom and ability to change and adapt my project to who I was and what I loved I think really helped with the outcome of my project. I feel like for both Macbeth and the Hope project I learned so much and took in so much information because I was able to take it in in a way I understand and a way I connected to. I am a very hands on learner and learn through experiences and movement and so being able to dance as my project helped me grasp and understand the work or learning so much better. Shakespeare to me was definitely I little confusing when we were just reading the book. I wasn’t fully understanding what was going on unless we did those big in class discussions and break down of the text. When I was able to take the text and turn it into a dance I found it so much easier to understand. I was able to put emotions, thoughts, and feelings behind the words.
Democracy in Schools Spring Exhibition
The last project or evidence of learning I wanted to discuss today was the spring exhibition. For the spring exhibition this year we were given a lot of freedom in our projects. Our driving question was “How might we transform education systems to create engaged and informed citizens?”. To help answer the driving question we talked a lot about civics and civic education. We did a lot of work on civics and discusses what might we want to change in the education system to make schools better for students. We got to pick our own topic of interest and create our own answer to the driving question. I chose to do Democracy in Schools. We talked a lot about civic education in schools however I felt as a student that was definitely a topic that was lacking. The government, education systems, and school districts, all say that that it is very important students learn about civics and that it is very implemented in the curriculum. However not including this project I can only remember doing one other project on civics I high school. There is also a problem with voting right now. Younger generations aren’t voting when they leave high school. The way the system is built democracy doesn’t work unless we as citizens vote and participate. A lot of research has said that many student when they leave high school don’t feel ready for the real world. High school is supposed to prepare us for the real world. Learning about civics, democracy, and voting, is very important. I decided for my project to come up with a plan or idea to help fix this. To help eliminate the problem of younger generations not voting is to create a similar system to the government in schools. It would not only help teach students about the government and democracy, but it may also help bridge the gap of voting after high school. Implemented in high schools, every year the students would run and elect who they would want to be their school “party” or “council”. To run the group does need to have at least one representative from each grade. The elected group would then be in charge and allowed to make small decisions or changes to the school throughout the year. The students would than see how the group they elected affects what happens. They would notice how each elected group does different things, from year to year, or also in comparison to other schools. This would help teach them about the government and how it works, as well as the importance of a vote. Also because students would be used to voting in high school, when they leave and have the right to vote in the real world they’ll be somewhat used to it and it won’t be this new big thing. This project helped me learn a lot about civics, and made me think of new ideas and ways to solve problems. I went through a long process of thinking and coming up with new ideas to get students engaged and created educated and informed citizens.
Growths and Goals
In my MPOL I said that my growths had been in public speaking. I still agree with this. In my MPOL I talked about the Manhattan project and delivering a speech to an entire class. How it went well and how I felt like I had grown in that area. I think I have continued to grow in that area as another example of growth for me in public speaking was the spring exhibition. I felt very calm, collected, and confident at the spring exhibition and I think it showed in my work and presentations. I was good at answering questions which I felt like I haven’t always been good at as I felt like I never really knew what to say. In my MPOL I also said my goal was to improve my spelling and grammar as well as my time management skills. I feel like I’ve improved on both of these a lot. My spelling is definitely a lot better, I am still working on my grammar and expanding and understanding my vocabulary, but I think it has definitely improved. My time management skills are definitely better. I write stuff down in my planner and work hard to get assignments in on time and complete.
I think for gaols I need to work on my consistency and clarity in ideas. For every project I could think of for this past year I’ve always felt that every project has started off very rocky. Every project I’ve done has turned out well and I’ve been proud of however always the first couple assignments and the beginning process have not been great. The project starts out a little rough and I always have an idea in mind and I know what I’m going to do but I think I struggle with communicating it or connecting it to the assignments in the beginning. I get there eventually but I think maybe if I got there faster I could take my projects further. I am open to suggestions and ideas but I think maybe a way I could help myself with this is by writing it out in a way that is easily understood. For example either writing out a thesis or topic idea in a notebook or by writing one of those thesis sheets we did in the Hope project. I think clarifying my ideas sooner would help me more. I always struggle a bit at the beginning of projects and I think if I could find a way to understand and struggle a little bit less my ideas could go further and I could make more connections to other topics and projects.
Evidence of my learning this year
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