“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.”
This year, I’ve worked really hard and made a lot of progress in my learning. I’ve collaborated, shared ideas, communicated with groups, and created some amazing things that I am very proud of. I would like to share with you how I have grown as a learner and am ready for the transition to grade 9.
Reflecting on my Learning Plan and my growth as a learner
Scimatics
In Scimatics, I forecasted earlier in the year that I would reach a sun as a level of accomplishment. I feel like I have met the bar that I set for myself. I continued to show that I could be a productive and reliable group member when given the opportunity, and always completed my portion of the work. I felt like I made a strong effort to bring ideas to the group for the different projects.
I can continue to work on submitting my work on time. For Scimatics in particular, I struggled to manage my time with assignments and often underestimated how long it would take me to complete the work. I may not have submitted them on time, but I always completed the assignments and tried to do the recommended revisions.
– Chemistry Coding
With the Chemistry Coding assignment, I learned that we will almost never get things right on the first try, and that it will take many revisions to achieve the product that you set out to make in the first place. For example, for this assignment, I had to keep going back into the game to fix bugs and glitches and to make sure that it met the criteria.
Humanities
For Humanities, I think one of my greatest skills was in understanding new ideas quite quickly. For example, during the Working with Words project, we learned a lot of new types of poems and I was able to grasp the major concepts in a short amount of time and come up with my own examples of these poems.
We used the App Book Creator to create the poem ebook for Working with Words, and I feel like I learned some valuable new skills from this app. Some of those skills include creating background photos and adjusting colour schemes to complement the poems I created.
Some of my stretches for Humanities are related to writing. These include writing longer blog posts, especially reflections. I think I could organize more of a plan before beginning to write. I also need to work on putting in my best effort rather than putting in a mediocre effort and moving on. A great first step would be to go back and review the assignment criteria to check if I have met all of the requirements. Argh Matey is a good example of an assignment where I could have put in greater effort by using more descriptive words in the Pirate Story and could have organized my thoughts a lot more clearly so that the story flowed more naturally.
Maker
In Maker, I developed a ton of skills based on the new programs we were introduced to in Maker 8. One of the new apps that I now use all the time is the Sketches Pro app, and I first discovered it when I participated in the “Power of the Pencil” Carr unit. One example of how I’ve applied it is the cell biology comic creation in Scimatics that we just completed.
I also really enjoyed all of the photo walks and the tutoring on new photography techniques that could expand our creativity in taking photos. I look forward to using those techniques in grade 9 and seeing what photography challenges lie ahead. I feel like I am already very comfortable photographing nature, but I’d like to work on photographing people and experimenting with different angles and lighting.
Another example of work that I am proud of from Maker 8 is the Geek Out blog post challenge in which we had the freedom to write about our own interests. During this blog challenge, I used my skill of drawing to create a tracing of a photo from the December choir concert, and now I’ve expanded even further on this skill in creating several comic panels in a much faster period of time. Looking back, I think I found the Geek Out challenge a lot more enjoyable because when I’m limited to a particular subject, I feel frustrated by how it squashes my creativity and I can sometimes suffer from a “brain block”. Going into grade 9, I think I need to continue to look for ways that I can express my creativity even when I’m given a specific topic.
Conclusion
I think my work in grade 8 reflects that, as a learner, I may lack motivation and become easily distracted, but in the end, I have the knowledge and the technical skills to get things done. I’ve grown a lot in terms of my group work skills. I know that I need to continue to work on time management and will find strategies to motivate myself instead of relying on others to help to motivate me. I will take my new iPad skills, group skills, and knowledge with me as I move into grade 9.
For the first step, I spent my time carefully tracing the outline of the photo that matched the picture behind it (thank god for layers ?). The only problem I ran into was tracing the other person’s (Dara’s) feet, since they were blocked by the person sitting in front of the camera. That is why they may look wonky and disproportionate.
