Hello,

This is my TPOL or Transitional learning post.

During the 7 minutes of time I have today to talk about my experience so far in the PLP. I will cover:

1. Why I think PLP has really changed my experience of high school this year?

2.How have I grown as a learner?

3. Projects that I think demonstrated my growth this year.

4. Demonstrating Leadership, being able to work in groups, etc.

5. What I think I can improve on. And what problems have I improved upon.

6. Leadership roles outside of PLP.

 

How has PLP changed my High School experience (so far) 

So I think my high school experience would be so different without PLP. I used to be really really focused and obsessed with the grades. That’s not to say I don’t care about how well I do now, but I find myself caring more about the quality of work I produce than a letter on a piece of paper. Additionally PLP has made me develop several skills which I find that I can really utilise as tools that I don’t think I nescessarily would have developed in regular school. Additionally I really struggled with social situations and such things but the program has given me more confidence in myself.

How have I grown as a learner? 

As I mentioned before I developed multiple skills over the course of the year which in turn have made me grow as a learner. I think one of the main ones, which a lot of people talk about but I think is really important, is the way I can take feedback. If you had told me at the beginning of the year that I would’ve had to do at least ten drafts of something with ten rounds of feedback I might have broken down. For example: the first time I handed in an assignment but it wasn’t in a pdf and I got a comment about it I freaked out. Like that was the level of high strung Gabby that was going on but I find now that I can find new and innovative ways to incorporate the feedback I get. I have also definitely learnt to get more comfortable with leaderships roles in the classroom and most definitely outside of the classroom, in everyday life, which I’ll cover in a bit.

 

Projects that have demonstrated my growth this year. 

One project that is very memorable was the Stitch in Time quilt project. That’s definitely one of the projects I had a bit more difficulty with. When we were writing out the story that we were going to use to create our quilt, I couldn’t really wrap my mind around the idea that our story was “too complicated” and that we had to simplify it. And I have definitely learned that to produce good work you don’t need to have a ridiculously complicated plot line.

 

The project that I am by FAR the most proud of this year is the infographic project. I mean if you compare our first draft with our final draft, it is so much better. I think my group and I demonstrated a good ability to take in feedback and apply it in the best way we could. Also with that project there was a lot of: okay we have 1 day to research this, Alright you have to design this, etc. And what I mean by that is that we were able to do our work efficiently and to the best of our capabilities. We also learnt a heck of a lot with this project about different religions and that really sparked an interest in me, and it was even more interesting when we continued with worldview and learning about it through the year.

I think the reason  that these projects really demonstrate my growth is it at the beginning of most of those I found myself struggling with the concept and keeping up with the workload but by the end I found myself much more able to understand what was going on and how I could contribute. I think part of that might just have been me familiarizing myself with the subject and the other part was just me getting used to how we do things in the PLP and How I could find a role for myself within groups.

 

LEADERSHIP 

In most projects that I have been in this year I have had to often take the role of leader. For example in DI I found myself having to lead my group through tricky situations and difficulties. It was definitely hard but at the end of DI I looked back and saw all the skills I had gained. Some of the more notable ones include: resilience, I had to deal with a lot of boulders being hurled my way, self confidence, DI really brought my self esteem down and then brought it back up, especially when were performing.

 

Group work

Group work used to be difficult for me. But after joining PLP I found that it was a bit easier. Not only was it because I had to learn to trust my classmates but because I was put in situations where I needed to work with them. And it worked quite well. I think project based environments stimulate my mind much more than regular school does.

• That’s not to say I haven’t had disfunctional groups, like my the Door is a Bore Group, Grace, Sam and Jackson, where we had 1 person Controlling everything, 1 person doing nothing and then two people caught in the middle. But looking back on that It was definitely and experience That helped me figure out how groups could share work more equally.

 

Improve and Improved 

I think one thing I have definitely improved on is my ability to cope with stress. I used to get really stressed, especially throughout math classes because I found that I didn’t always get what was going on and I got scared, so I found myself not being able to cope with it but now I have found ways to manage pressure and learn to take a seat and step back. However I would like to improve more upon how to relax when it comes to group work. My personal challenge is that I really want to improve is how to take my work even more outside of the school and go more into depth about some topics.

 

Outside of PLP 

Not only my school life had changed because of the PLP but my whole life has. Honestly the PLP has provided me wit the opportunity to acquire new skills that I can apply in vastly different situations. I think one of my most proud moments of this year was when I had to give a speech in front of most of the people at Seycove, and I don’t think I could’ve done it without having been subjected to things like exhibitions and interviews through the PLP. I have started to take a new approach to think about things and people differently after we learnt about worldivew.

My speech

So that’s it from me, I just want to acknowledge how awesome this year has been, I got to meet some wonderful people and make loads of friends as well as get to learn some really neat stuff. I can’t wait to start next year in PLP and love my PLP family so much, even though we all have our crazy aunts and uncles and our problematic brothers.