Tagged: writing

Last mPOL :(

Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert of 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 offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.

Last year I looked back at my combined experience in high-school, and decided that I would live by the theme of having no regrets for my very last year. That is why I decided to play a higher level of soccer this year, aim to go to provincials for track & field again, applied to six universities, applied to thirteen scholarships so far and took on the role as producer in our film production. 

A big example of living by no regrets and going out of my comfort zone has been in our horror project, in which I took on one of the biggest and most sleep-depriving roles. Although it was challenging, I was grateful to be given the role and was able to learn a lot from it. Working with eighteen other people can be challenging which means that communication is key in order for things to run smoothly. I chose our
director knowing I’d work very well with her. In fact, our communication was top notch and we were always on the same page. However, where I failed was making false assumptions. Assuming that the other members of my class would check the schedule I told them all about and updated every day to know what they had to do and where they had to be, as well as have the drive to do them. If I were to do it again, I would’ve been even more clear by conducting meetings in the mornings and afternoons during production to make sure everyone was on the same page and had something to do. 

 

I also learned the nuances of being a good leader. On the upside, I realized that I have a natural ability to be organized. My organization in this project permitted us to have all the materials we needed up at loon lake, kept us on track by making sure we knew what had to be filmed and what could be filmed back at home, gave everyone roles that were crucial to helping make our production run smoothly and kept post-production on track with drafts and finally finishing our film. However, reflecting back I would have done things differently by being more assertive at certain times earlier in the process. I later fixed this mistake by being more assertive in post-production. 

When it came to public speaking, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that my need to be organized and prepared also translates to my ability to perform while presenting. In situations where I don’t feel prepared I become red-faced and nervous. Maybe overtime, as I continue to put myself in situations where I have to public speak I might get better at “winging it”, but today, my confidence in public speaking only resides in situations where i feel prepared. When I was asked to present my last year’s mPOL to all the PLP grade 10s and 12s, my face went red and remained that way throughout the entire presentation. Even though I wrote it, it was a whole year ago, and plus I didn’t have the time to prepare. However, at our PGP book exhibition last week, I wasn’t nervous at all and my presentation ran smoothly with every single person I encountered. Even though it was something that mattered a lot more, the fact that I was prepared and had all of the background knowledge I did made all the difference. Having read the book, done extensive research on it and on the authors, I knew exactly what I was talking about and felt confident in my words. This is something that I’ll certainly take on to my next projects by assuring that I’m very well prepared. This same thing applied to when I gained a boost in confidence speaking in Socratic Seminars, I simply began taking better notes and doing more research to back up the points I had. 

Finally, my writing skills have never been as good as they are now. My writing has improved immensely especially these past couple months due to writing admission essays to universities and scholarships. This has not only been because I’ve simply been a lot writing more than usual, but because I’ve been forced to write in my own way and use my own voice. Even when I faced uncertainties in my writing in projects, I’ve always gone to tutorial times to make sure my points and themes were what the teacher was looking for. 

To conclude, I’m happy about my performance in every project, even though there are things I may have wanted to change. For the remainder of this year I’d like to continue living by “having no regrets” and going out of my comfort zone, whether that means to take on more big roles in projects, take opportunities to speak in front of the class, take an acting role if it comes up or apply to be valedictorian. Going out of my comfort zone so far has improved my self-confidence and overall performance in projects which I’d like to keep up.