Oh how I have grown: Mpol

Hello internet, Hello Miss McWilliam, Hello parents, welcome to my second last Mpol ever, you know the deal.

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

So this year Mpol’s look a little different, so if you are wondering why this feels new, that’s because it is.

The first new thing is related to our prepol’s from this year. We have to show how we have aligned with our VMV’s, which is this thing. 

And we also have to answer this new question that I would like to consider the driving question of this post, “What is a habit or routine that has improved your learning so far this year?”. But I’ll get to that later.

My Vision

First of all, I would like to go over my vision “My vision is to be confident in social situations and be able to add valuable content to class discussions. I will be able to absorb information and use it in other ways, and even use it outside the classroom.” This is a great one to start off with because I have the perfect example. During our project about the Hiroshima bombing we were reading a book called Hiroshima by John Hersey, and every week we would take one class to sit down and hold a Socratic seminar to talk about the book. I really liked this environment because it felt less like a class where you had to put up your hand to talk, and much more like a group of people discussing a book that they all read. I felt like I could actually get my ideas out without having to be nervous of being wrong. These seminars really helped with my confidence in social situations and I can see it reflecting on me in places outside the classroom when I’m having discussions.

My Mission

Image credit: Big Think

Next I would like to go over my mission, “I plan to contribute to every one of my classes by providing at least one thing per class, whether it be a question, an idea or an answer. I want to do this because I believe I can bring new opinions to the table, as someone who has lived outside the country, I have two pretty different experiences and perspectives on how to live life. I think this is a valuable asset to have as I can give unique critiques and answers that some others might not think of.” I have a great example for this one too, however it is not a class nor a project, but a teacher. The introduction of Mr Gibson into PLP has helped me out quite a lot. The way he teaches classes makes it much easier for students to get their ideas out there because he provides a welcoming and open environment. He is always willing to answer our questions and never makes us feel stupid. This has helped me to add new things to each of my classes. Since I do have to give an example, I think this was well reflected in our project on The Cold War. The way he let us do this project helped us gain an insightful view into our topics. Since we were allowed to do WHATEVER WE WANT (as long as we could connect it to The Cold War) is widened the possibilities of our learning by so much because we could actually be interested in our topics, for example one of my classmates did a presentation on how The Cold War connected to Ryan Gosling. This project helped me bring ideas to the classroom that I think were truly my own.

My Values

Engagement

I think I have successfully been more engaged in class work this year because I’ve been finding topics that I actually care about more. For example, in our anthropology project we had to find an artifact and make a museum card that explained different things about it. Since we could choose whatever we wanted for the Museum of Anthropology, I chose to research a gun, because I find weapons very interesting. This allowed me to be more focused of my topic and actually care about researching it. If you would like to take a look at our final product you can find it here.

Self Regulation

I don’t have a specific project or class to associate with self regulation, but I have come up with strategies that have helped me improve on this. First of all I’ve been finding it easier to regulate myself just because I’ve have gotten older and matured more, but if even that isn’t working, I like to isolate myself so I know I won’t get distracted by my friends. This helps me to focus only on the work I have to be doing and lets me get classwork done in class. 

Communication and Collaboration

As I mentioned earlier, this year I have had experiences that allow me to collaborate effectively with my peers, however with communication I feel like I have also improved. Since this is my fourth year at the school, I have more and more realised that my teachers want the best for me too and also realised that they really aren’t that scary, so if I’m struggling I can just ask them for help and they won’t judge me because after all, they are there to help. An example of this is actually right now. As I am writing this post I have just asked my teacher for help because I was confused about some of the criteria, and wouldn’t you believe it, I actually got help from her.

So now we are coming to the end of the years Mpol, and I think I’m getting pretty good at these. But we mustn’t forget the driving question, “What is a habit or routine that has improved your learning so far this year?”. I feel like I’ve already talked about many of my improved habits, such as distancing myself when I need to focus, or talking to my teachers when I need help, but there is one more thing that has been extremely important. Actually writing down the things I have to do. This year, every time I am told I have to do something, like homework or something I didn’t finish in class, I write it down in things. By doing this I allow myself to be able to check what I still have to do, which has been really helpful for keeping me on track with my learning. I used to think “nah I’ll just remember it” but that way I always either forgot or did it late.

And so we have come to the end of this year’s Mpol post. I hope you can maybe take away something to help you improve yourself, and if not, I hope you can see how much I’ve grown as a learner over the years. That’s all for now. Good bye.