MPOL 2019

Wow, I am already in the middle of Grade 11 and it’s time for my presentation of learning also known as mPOL. If you don’t know what a’ presentation of learning’ is, it is basically a presentation that happens twice a year for PLP students to present to our parents and teachers how we believe that we can improve as learners.  We use examples of the work we’ve done so far this year to help explain our goals. For each PLP project there is always a driving question. This time it is “How are you going to progress as a learner before the end of the school year?” I will wrap up my introduction with a question I am going to ask you to think about and to comment on after my conclusion.   The question is “How can I work more efficiently and make better use of my time but not reduce the quality of my work?”   

 

 

Manhattan Project2

I am going to start off with my favourite project that I have done so far in PLP this year. The Manhattan project was a great project about a very important moment in history. It involved the dropping of the world’s first nuclear bombs that halted World War 2 and brought Japan to its knees. We visited Hanford, Washington, one of the three major sites for this war project and saw how the operation was run.  It was a life-changing experience and really opened my eyes to the impact Hanford had on the world. Prior to the need of uranium to build the two nuclear bombs, Hanford was not even a place you could visit, it was not even called Hanford. Overnight a small town called White Bluffs was transformed into a factory town with hundreds of thousands of workers doing work for a project that they didn’t know what it would look like in the end.  The project for this trip and unit was to create a video that would encompass five facts about Hanford. My group was made up of myself, Kate and Sofia. We wanted to focus our video on the environment and the impact that Hanford may have had on the environment. Looking back at this project I enjoyed doing it but I think there were opportunities for improvement. I believe that even though we were at these places and had valuable primary sources at our disposal,  I was enjoying the moment and not necessarily taking in the amount of information that I should have to make the best quality video I could. One of these valuable primary sources of information was Larry Haylor who was a worker in Hanford while it was in service. In terms of my work habits, if I had planned ahead more, I could have gathered even more information directly from Larry to make the video even better.  Another way that I could improve on this project is the technical aspect. This encompasses excellent audio, visuals and script. These are all things that make a great video. I believe that I need to put less effort into writing and producing a video that I like and more effort into a video that would test well to the masses and would make it easier for people to be educated on the topic we are covering. At the end of the day these videos can impact someone’s learning and if it does that would make me very happy.

Hanford, Washington


The Carousel of Communism

Another great example of my learning that shows my great work habits and work ethic is the Carousel of Communism project. This project was for the 2018 winter exhibition. This project was the only time that the entire PLP cohort has worked together on one project. Our exhibition was based around the following three topics. The Crucible’s witch trials, the McCarthy trials against Communists and the present day Russian investigation on Donald Trump and his presidential election. I like to call it the ‘three prong approach’. So the exhibition was set in the 1950’s and had different references to connect all of these topics together. We started off by planning the entire presentation/play in class. This was the first time that the teachers let us plan the entire project with no input at the beginning from them. We created multiple story boards and many different charts to help us fathom the project we would be undertaking. We split up the gym into six different stations or sets to make a full play. Each set had 1-3 actors that helped bring the story to life. These actors also interacted with guides who brought the group of people from set to set and brought the story together. When we were introduced to this project I was quite excited about the thought of us all working together because I know the great work everyone can do on their own projects and I always thought that if we ever had the chance to all work on one big project that it would be amazing. I was not wrong, the project was great.  Unfortunately when the project was starting, I had just injured myself twice in one week and missed some school during a critical part of the project.  First I hit and cut my head mountain biking and needed stitches.  Three days later I was back at the hospital because I sprained my ankle in basketball and was on crutches.  This caused me to miss some school. Reflecting back, I wish I had the opportunity for a larger speaking role. Since I was not feeling well and was away, I was given a role without any say, and was thrown into the mix. I wish I had made more of an effort to get a larger role or insist on more lines for my role.  I was just told what to do as the project went on. I was feeling so busy catching up with school and physiotherapy that I went with the role I was given.  So to recap, to improve, I would have put a lot more effort into my leadership for my speaking role, even if I wasn’t feeling good and not let my injuries and trying to catch up on other work slow me down. Even if I couldn’t change my speaking role for the exhibition night, I am proud of all the work I did and leadership I displayed behind the scenes for the building of the sets.

Picture from the Exhibition


PGP

Alright now that that we have covered the Humanities portion of the MPOL it is time to talk about the work I have been doing in PGP. PGP stands for ‘Personal Growth Plan and this is in my eyes a great course that will help me become a better person in the long run. I have been playing sports since I was 1 or 2 and throughout these years I have set hundreds of goals for myself.   Some have been small and some have been big. When the PLP teachers introduced the idea of goal setting I thought I was already a pro. I thought that I was already a good goal setter so in the beginning I was skeptical and didn’t think it would make a difference.  I was reluctant to get started. As time went on and I worked on it further, I realized that this assignment isn’t just a paragraph about goal setting, it is meant to impact my life.  I started to notice that as I read the book and do the forms I could see how these steps could make a difference. I learned that writing big goals on a piece of paper, letting yourself see the goal everyday is a huge motivator for me and helps to keep me focused and prioritize.  If I set goals visually like this, I think it will make me a more effective learner.

PGP book


Conclusion

Overall these first 5 months of my grade 11 PLP year have been great. I have learned so much and gained new skills that I will be able to take into my life for years but there is always room for improvement.  I think that I can do better and be more effective with my time and still achieve a high quality of work.  In the next months coming up I will be improving on many different things and skills to again be the best person I can. I will be trying different writing styles so that I can expand my writing arsenal and expand my word repertoire. I will be updating my blog to make it more interesting and personal to me by diving into the Divi page builder to give it a more professional look. I think continuing to re-visit my goals each day will help me be more effective in my time and improve learning. Even doing this mPOL taught me something.  First I skimmed the instructions for the mPOL and started writing.  Then I looked at them more carefully later and realized I’d missed some things and I had to redo it.  If I review assignment requirements twice before starting it might take a few extra minutes in the beginning but I will save a lot of time later.  I will also plan ahead more so that I can make the best use of my time and gain more knowledge if I am reading or listening to a speaker.  PGP will help me be a better planner.  Overall in these upcoming months I hope to grow as a learner and become a person that will make a greater impact on this planet. Just like in sports, I feel that practicing a skill in school helps make you better.  It’s like the quote “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — Will Durant   But practicing a skill takes time so that is why it is good to ask: “How can I work more efficiently and make better use of my time but not reduce the quality of my work?”  I will continue to work on this goal.

 

 

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