I know I say this every year but I still find it crazy to think that we’re already halfway through the school year. It has been quite the semester with a lot going on so now it’s time to sit down and relax and reflect on everything that has happened.

When it came to making our learning plans at the beginning of the year, I wanted to set high expectations for myself. After two years of being in PLP, I’ve finally understood what I’m capable of achieving if I really put my mind to it, so I set a goal to reach 95% in both PLP classes by the end of the year. But to me that 95% is just a number and what my goal really was was to constantly push myself to the point where all the work I have created is something that I genuinely feel proud of. 

Moving Forward

At the moment I have recognized that I am not there yet and I’m going to have to change a few things to get there. The last couple of years I have always been quite interested in learning and wanted to go above expectations, however, this year my mentality isn’t always in the spot it needs to be. There have been some times this year where I do feel that my work and mindset have been where I want it to be and that was during the second half of our ”Ology of Apology” project. After going on our field studies and actually seeing what we were learning I felt that I was willing to learn and showed interest in the topic. In my learning plan, one of my goals was to talk more and include more of my opinions in my work and during the exhibition, I thought I did that quite well. Now don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of improvement needed but at least I have started on the right track. As I said there has only been a few moments where my mentality has been in the right place but in order to reach the 95% that I want I have made a goal for myself. I want to maintain a positive, focused, and motivated mindset, now this isn’t just a switch I can turn on and it will take some time. My best work comes from when I am motivated and find something about the topic interesting, but in reality, even though I’m not going to enjoy everything we do, I know that I have the capability to remain motivated. In order to do that, I am going to find a way to connect the topic that we are learning about to one that I enjoy. 

At the start of the year, we were introduced to our zettlekasten which is a new form of note-taking or a way to have better thinking. I’m not the kind of person to take notes so I thought this would be one of those unnecessary things and never thought I would find it useful, and after half a year of using it, I still don’t know how I feel. However, if I can get myself to learn more about Craft and use it to its full potential, I think it could be the thing I need to reach my final learning goal. This is a great tool for me to connect two topics and be in that mindset I need.

Opportunities For Growth

I’ve heard a few teasers about our upcoming projects and I can say I am looking forward to them, not only that but I also feel that they’ve arrived at the perfect time. The past three projects haven’t really been my cup of tea so going into our new project on WWII is a great opportunity for me to show growth. Although I know little to no information on the Second World War, it is a topic that I can see myself enjoying and pushing myself to do well on and will help me reach my goal of maintaining that positive mindset. Not only are we doing a WWII project but we are also doing something with podcasts which is also great for me to show growth. Another goal in my learning plan was to show more character and just make my work more of my own so a podcast goes hand in hand with that.

Highlights

I know these mPOLs are supposed to be about PLP but I can’t go without mentioning my other classes. During science, a lot of note-taking was done, but it got me thinking about my zettlekasten and how I can connect the two topics even though they are complete opposites. On the maker side of my learning plan, I thought I could grow by applying the skills I’ve learnt to the outside world and I feel like I’ve done a great job with that in the Spanish class I’ve just finished. I was able to use all the video skills I’ve learnt throughout the years and apply them to assignments which resulted in a grade I was proud of. Finally, I want to mention my “Think You Can Do Better” project, I don’t really like speaking on behalf of other people but we’ve all said that we didn’t think the end result was anywhere near our best work, but it’s not that I want to focus on, I think the growth I showed in that project was the best I’ve done all year. I had no interest in politics and still don’t now but throughout the project I pushed myself to constantly better my understanding and I think I showed that in my final reflection. 

With all that said and done I’m looking forward to the next semester and can’t wait to grow even more as a learner and reach my learning goals.