It’s that time of the year, mPol season. Our mPols are a way to show our growth of a learner. We do them twice a year, in January and May ish. Our driving question is, how are you going to progress as a learner before the end of the school year?

This year we have been introduced to a new way to think about learning, PGP which stands for Personal Growth Plan. In PGP we learn skills such as goal setting, timeblocking, and productivity. Something that I have gotten better at is time management. An app for that we were introduced to is Things. Things has helped me so much with getting things done. I use it to set goals, track my homework etc. You can set due dates which is a huge benefit to me because since we have so much going on its nice to see it all laid out.

Timblocking has also helped me with time management, I can plan out my day so I get everything done. Here is an example of a day where I had a lot of work and I needed to timeblock to help me stay productive.

With in PGP we were also introduced to curricular competencies and to habits of mind. “Curricular competencies are skills, strategies, and processes that as a student you develop over time”. Every project we do in PLP strengthens one or many of the curricular competencies.

A curricular competency that I think I have improved on is speaking. This is from practicing presentations, I am enrolled in DLSC and I oftern have to talk in front of an audience about problems in the schools. Even though I have improved, there is always room for improvement. For example I could work on voice tone, not speaking too fast etc.

Next for PGP, I’ll talk about my work habits. For the most part I am very good at getting my work done, and I never hand in work late. However sometimes I can procrastinate. From using my new PGP skills, I have set goals to stay on track and not procrastinate. Something I have started doing is when I get home take an hour break from school work, and then start studying. I have found for myself that I need to take breaks in between studying and then I can be productive. I even did one of my Crucible posts about procrastination. I was very proud of my Cricible posts, I spent a lot of time working on all three of them.

A huge part of PGP is setting goals. I read What do I really Want? and even took some note of key quotes that stood out to me. While we were reading we had to fill in forms. I did pretty much all of the forms and completed my dream board. From reading the book and doing the forms I now now ish some of my goals for this year, long and short term. I had a lot of fun creating my dream board. I included dream job (architect), sports, what I care for etc.

Something I said last year that I want to improve is my leadership skills. Last year in a group project I wouldn’t be the one to stand up and become the leader/DRI however, I think this term I have demonstrated that role of a leader. To start off with, in my Hanford project and the Exhibiton I took a leader role. For the Hanford video, I became the DRI. I was making sure my group members were on track. 

I think that the Hanford video is my best work this year that I created with Alex and Robbie. With the video, we used all of our previous skills such as videos, interviewing, audio and script/story writing. I also learnt so much so much about the Manhattan Project and I demonstrated that in my Hanford post.

Another example is the Winter Exhibition. Within the main DRI’s we have smaller DRI’s for each section of the project. For example, hair and makeup, script and set design. I put my self forwards as DRI for set design. I was in charge of making sure everyone had a job, getting the building done, also I had to clear everything before we built. From being a DRI of two projects I feel more comfortable taking that role. As always there is more room for improvement from example I didn’t feel ready to stand up as the main DRI for the Winter Exhibition.

I am also very proud of my post I did for the exhibition. I spent a lot of time reflecting what went well and what didn’t. I also demonstated how much I learned from that experienc. I learned so so much about the 1950’s!!!!!! Out of everything we have done in PLP this year, the exhibition was my favourite. It was an amazing experience especially working with the whole class. Surprisingly when we put our heads together we can produce some pretty good work.

As always there is room for improvemnt. However, there is no such thing as “failing”. If anything its good to make mistake because you will learn from them. Something that I really want to work on is staying positive and motivating myself to do homework. I think this is so important and it can help me with all of my classes. To motivate myself I can set more goal and award myself. Form completing the forms I set some goals and ways to award myself, I think that is a good place to start. Also having a more positive attitude will make my work have better quality.