Transitional. Presentation. Of. Learning. It’s that time of year when everything is starting to come to a close, except for us PLP students. Creating Blue Sky projects, finishing off other small tasks and then…… there is tPOLs. Welcome, my fellow parents and teachers to the most wonderful, amazing, fantastic Presentation of Learning you will ever see. Today, I Jordyn Eyton will be introducing you to my Growth Garden. You are probably wondering what the heck that means but do not worry, you will find out soon enough. In this Garden, there are 4 perfect, beautiful, and strong flowers growing which represent my successful work as well as 4 not so great flowers that represent the work I need to improve on. All of these flowers are equally important and you are about to find out why. Welcome to my…. Growth Garden!!

SUCCESSES

In my books, a success is something you personally are proud of. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It’s also something you have grown, maybe a skill or a habit but it is something you have almost perfected. Success is a feeling, A feeling of wonder and pride that everyone should feel in their lifetime, it is something to celebrate!

Scimathics

This project, Time is Money which was all about linear equations and Graphs gave me a taste of what running a business is like and well, that taste didn’t taste great. It takes a lot of work and math and worrying about if you are making enough in a year with a graph like this:

What I am most proud of in this project is how I ended up using my linear equation in a hypothetical situation, testing out different hypothesis and variables to discover how I could actually provide for myself. It really showed me what real life is like and now I can even test how much I make a year with babysitting. Like Right now!

Maker

Since DI is one of the biggest parts of our Maker class, it takes up a whole term after all, it had to come up somewhere in this post am I right? The Destination Imaginaiton Regional Tournament is a happy flower in my garden for many many reasons as we came first, got amazing scores, and had all the elements included. But there is one thing that I learned the most of all very quickly in this project that I have never experienced before. This is the art of pushing yourself to your limits. Last year I worked very hard, of course but last year I did improv. This year, my group actually wrote a play along what sewing light up shirts and creating a giant wooden egg:

I am very proud of the leadership I took in this project as it was quite a difficult group to work with, and my perseverance when creating the different elements. Although I probably will not get a chance to do DI again, these skills come in handy all the time. I mean, In my opinion, DI is the best place to create a boppin toolkit for life in general with creativity, Teamwork, leadership, and perseverance all in one.

Humanities

Wow. That is all I have to say. I don’t think I have ever felt so good and strong about a project in my life. This project was the video I created in Victoria about Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, Rick Steves Style.

It was really a breakthrough in film making for me, setting off a chain reaction of many other amazing videos after it such as my Heritage minute and WW1 video. I literally do not even know where to start because I learned so many amazing lessons and skills. I’ll start with PROCESS. The process to create a video is tedious. Everything from scripts and storyboards to filming and editing need to be included to create a quality video. Here is an accordion from my WW1 post:

First things first, I had to choose my topic. Me, absolutely loving animals (which you can find in my about me page), made it an easy choice. I decided to research The Role of Animals in WW1.

Now for the pitch form. I don’t want to get too much into this because I will talk about it later but this was the first project I did a pitch form and it quickly became very important. 

As many of you are familiar with, the Screenplay is the next step. Screenplays are something I have been working on for the past few projects and I am really proud of how for I have come with them:

Storyboarding. This storyboard was a little bit different, we actually created it in Keynote which I really enjoyed and had a lot of fun creating.

Last but not least, it’s filming. I went to Maplewood Farm on the perfect day, it was bright and sunny and beautiful and I am very happy with how those shots turned out.

Next important thing is planning ahead. I had one chance and one chance only to film at Ross Bay Cemetery which turned out very well thanks to my partner but there was also a lot of work to do on my side of things.

Last but not least. This video project really allowed me to be myself. The Rick Steves Video style gave me freedom to be a bit quirky but also professional and that shows me that there is always space to put yourself into your work.

PGP

This year has been the most organized year of my life because of PGP, and I am sure I say that to much. I am basically a walking advertisement for PGP. Anyways, let’s cut to the chase. I chose my Time Machine Artifact as the project I am most proud of for PGP because I feel like it Accumulates everything I have learned.

 

Everything from the seven habits, to what do you really want, to timeblocking, and most of all Things. I am now a religious Things user thanks to Mr. Hughes and I will never go back. I really stepped outside of my comfort zone with my Time Machine as I built something physical which is rare for me. All I could think about was the chart of my skills from DI and the lowest one being building so of course I built something, I needed it to be even! It showed me that I can do anything if I put my mind to it even if the facts defy it.

FAILURE

Failure is not a fail. A fail is like it’s done, it’s over. Failure is just the process. Although you may originally feel bad or upset because of Failure, it makes you stronger int he long run. The things you fail at teach you the best lessons you could possibly learn and that is what they are still in my growth garden. They are reminders to be better.

Scimathics

Now, this may seem a bit surprising due to the fact that this project was still succesful, but the project that gave me the biggest empty feeling in Scimathics was the clones. I personally still love the project as we literally got to clone bamboo.

 

there was a recurring feeling that continued to rise in me every class. This feeling was frustration and giving up. These feelings completely block all creative and passionate pathways for me. This mostly happened when we were looking for mitosis and slides and I never want to feel like that again.

 

Although these were quite negative feelings, now and in the future, they will power me to be positive no matter how frustrating the task is. 

Maker

Hey look at that, we are talking about DI again but this time we are talking about the provincial tournament because for my team, we had to very different experiences. I learned two huge lessons at this tournament, two that will impact my life forever, they are things I will never forget.

 

Unfortunately, my team, after working very hard was disqualified from the Destination Imagination provincial tournament. This was cause by acts of disrespect towards a volunteer that I wish I had taken more seriously. Along with that, we also scored much worse than what we did at regionals. This is because we didn’t improve between the two tournaments, nothing changed! If anything, things got worse. To summarize, the two lessons I learned are to always be respectful and to take feedback and improve!

Humanities

The Identity video I made in Humanities isn’t necessarily a project I am disappointed in but it is a project I have learned from, a project that I look back at it and cringe a little because of how far I have come. At this point in time I didn’t even know about the rule of thirds for goodness sake!!

This is the flower in my garden I am most happy to have because it has taught me so much over the past year about on-set filming, location, lighting, script, preparation and so much more. Alberta was the trip of a life-time but if I could go back and film again…. i would give anything because now I could make such an amazing video. Thank you Identity Video.

PGP

Yep. It’s still a problem. I know we talked about it at my mPOL and it started to get better but now I’m back to square one. Timeblocking. I know it could be so so helpful it’s just getting my self to do it.

Here is a little bit I did right after my mPOL. This is an easy problem to fix as i just need to get in the habit of doing it and i know that it will lessen my homework load and help me organize it even better than I already do.

REFLECTION

The conclusion is simple. I have learned so many things this year I might explode. Let’s review my garden:

Ya, as I said I learned a lot from those flowers, all eight of them. I will never get rid of any one of them as they all teach me equally important thing, the good and bad ones. This tPOL, although it is terrifying, is a very important opportunity for me to look back at the year and celebrate how I have done well, how I haven’t and how I have grown from those things. I know that as a PLP student, I am thriving in this environment and I hope to stay that way because I think it is really preparing me for the future and making me a better person. Thank you for the opportunity to blab at you for the last 7 mins (probably more honestly) about how great I am because sometimes I need that little more encouragement. So let’s end with a quote,

“She believed she coud so she did.”

I hope you enjoyed the story of Jordyn Growth Garden. Until next time My Dog Ate My Bloggers.

~Jordyn