Already halfway through grade 9! You know what that means! It’s time to reflect on my growth as a learner in the first half of the year! Yep, you guessed it: time for another Mpol (Midyear Presentation of Learning). Let’s begin!

Declaration of learning:

“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.”

I’ll start off with some ways that I have shown growth as a learner this year. One of the ways I have shown growth this year, was pushing out of comfort zone by taking more risks. Whether it be taking a step back and hearing out other peers’ plans or jumping in and taking initiative, I have been showing growth in my collaboration competency. 

One of the projects that I felt I demonstrated myself taking risks was the first films project, in my maker class. In this project, in order to create my documentary film, I needed to interview at least one person. This person could be a peer, a teacher, or a family member, but we were encouraged to try to get in touch with an expert in the community. My teacher, Ms. Kadi showed me a website for an environmental organization taking a stand for old growth forests. I was a bit nervous to reach out at first, but I ended up emailing the Last for Forests media team. 

Several emails later, I had set up a zoom interview with Ojistoh Henhawke, an indegenous leader from the last stand for the Forests organization. This was stretching beyond my regular comfort zone because I had never met the woman I was about to interview about the destruction of old growth forests. 

I also had several First Attempts In Learning (F.A.I.L.s), when editing this video. The video was supposed to be 3-5 minutes long, and I had a 14 minute interview and a 22 minute interview, full of relevant and important information on the topic. Everything seemed important, so I had a really tough time extracting only the most important parts of both interviews. In the end my video was about 5 and half minutes, so on the longer side, and the editing and b-roll wasn’t my best work, but I learned to embrace those F.A.I.L.s. I know how hard I worked behind the scenes, and it is something that I’m proud of despite those fails, because I chose a real life topic that I’m passionate about. I think that when you put your passions and interests into your work, you can create something way more interesting than if you don’t. That is why I like the freedom of topics to choose from, so that you can pick one that you’re more interested in. You can click here to watch my video.

I feel like I utilized all of my curricular competencies in the First Films project believe it or not. I used my thinking competency to come up with ideas, do research, and make executive decisions and conclusions. I applied my knowledge to communicate with others (in class, and when interviewing experts) and to create and effective first film that tells the story of the real life issue. And I can connect with the topic of the destruction of old growth forests, because I feel it is part of who I am. I can interact with others and the environment respectfully.

This (first half of the) year, I have truly improved my range of communication strategies and forms. I feel confident with my abilities, to adapt my writing, speaking, documentaries, videos, photos, graphic organizers, or drawings to communicate purposefully with a certain audience. This semester, I have shown growth in my communication abilities in all of my PLP courses (Science, Maker, Humanities), which transfers into my non-PLP courses like textiles. To elaborate a bit on that… 

In Science 9, communication was key to sharing ideas and results with peers. A very important step in the scientific process is sharing your results (even if things didn’t go the way you had hypothesized they would), and what you learnt with others. I was able to show what I had learnt in some awesome ways like this video, these comic strips, and the graphic organizer below.

In maker, after making documentary films on heavier, real life topics, I also got to express my creativity and collaborate with my peers to make some fun videos like these ones:

These were really fun to make and encouraged trial and error, and experimenting with the editing effects.

In Humanities, I wanted to highlight some of my most recent work, from our Industrial Revolution and Slam poetry project. I have yet to do a blog post on this one, but it’s coming. Anyways…In this project I practiced writing an objective paragraph on the Environmental consequences of the Industrial Revolution. This was hard because everything had to be factual, none of your bias or emotion could be included. But we were only writing one paragraph, so it wasn’t that long. The other writing assignment was a slam poem on the same topic as the paragraph. I then performed my slam poem in front of the class using my verbal communication skills. I really feel like I excelled in this assignment and was able to grow my communication abilities.

How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?

I am ready to advance to the next core competency profiles in my communication competency, because I feel I have shown a lot of growth in this area and that I can communicate using a a variety of forms appropriately. I also feel I am ready to advance to profile 4 in my positive personal and cultural identity, and social awareness and responsibility.

Habits, Systems and Dispositions:

Something I still really need to improve on is my time management skills and strategies. Whether in class or at home, I want to be more efficient so that I’m not piling up loads of work for later. I often don’t have that much homework time with ice hockey, field hockey and tennis practices and games spread throughout my entire week, so it is extremely important for me to be productive when I do have the time.

To do this, I think I have be less chatty in class, so that I can get more work done in class, so that I don’t have as much homework. When doing homework at home, removing myself from distractions (like my siblings, dog, phone, music etc.), and setting work timers are both strategies I can utilize to be more productive and not let my work pile up.

Moving forward, I would also like to set more goals (SMART ones, that is). Now that I’ve learned all about the power of goal setting and it’s benefits, it’s time for me to actually set goals that I will and can stick to. This applies for academic goals as well as sports, fitness, personal projects and life goals. I have a hard time sticking to long term goals, but there is only one way to get better at something, and that is with practice.

Thank you for coming to, or reading my mpol. Any questions??