Being a grade 8 I was very confused when I heard my teachers say we had to do an mPOL. I had no idea what it meant or what it was, but once they went into detail I knew exactly what to do. An mPOL is a “Mid-term Presentation Of Learning” which means a presentation in which we show our best work to our parents and teachers. We must explain what we’ve learned throughout the year so far and what we can improve on for the rest of the year.

Successes

Some of my best work this year has been in maker. The Star Wars Project was one of my favourite projects ever. I was really passionate about the subject and I wanted to make it special and push myself more than ever before. All my hard work payed off as well, because I got lots of positive feedback from the exhibition and my blog post got a thumbs up emoji.

Another unit I loved was the advertising unit at the beginning of the year in humanities. We learned a lot about critique and revision in that unit, which was exactly what I needed. Before joining PLP I was always afraid of critique because I thought the person giving it was just being mean, but because that was our first unit it completely changed my mindset and now I have no problem with it.

Another project I want to talk about is the Mighty Molecular Movies we made in Scimathics. Although I go into detail about what it was on the blog post it’s important to mention what I learned. Not only did I learn about the actual topic but making the movie taught me a lot about the iPad and editing videos on an iPad. It was also very scary listening to my own voice on recording, but I got over that fear as well.

Failures

One of the things I struggled with in the first half of the year was my novel study. In humanities we read “The Highest Tide” which was really hard for me to get into. I read the first few chapters and couldn’t get engaged in the story. I knew I had to read the book though, so I read each chapter not really caring about what I was reading. That was until I had to fill out the Intertidal Life Chart, which made me realize I had to pay attention to every creature, which I hadn’t been that well. I went back to the beginning of the book and power read through it. Even though I read through the whole thing I was stressed the whole time feeling really behind and worried which didn’t feel good.  Now I know to always be on top of my novel study even if it isn’t my favourite type of book, because I will feel much worse if I don’t get it done.

Another difficulty I had was learning all the new math formulas of grade 8. In elementary school math always came easy to me, but when I was faced with things I’d never done before and brand new equations I felt clueless as to how to solve the problems. Luckily for me Mrs. Klausen is a great math teacher so she helped me understand everything way better by showing me a simple solution for everything. I ended up getting so much better at math and I understand more of it as a whole. I also know to not give up when learning something new. No matter how easy it might seem to say you’ll never get it, you will, and when you do it is the greatest feeling in the world.

Good & Bad Work Habits

One good work habit I got myself into at the beginning of the year is checking Showbie every single night before I fall asleep. Obviously I’m on it a lot throughout the day, but when I’m ready to sleep I can make are I’m on top of everything or last minute finish something. Although I don’t recommend doing work at night, it does make me focus way more because the only other thing I want to do is sleep, so I have no distractions. I also put all of my documents into folders which makes everything really easy to find. For example all of my pages documents are sorted into folders divided up by subjects. A habit I need to get out of is swiping up all of my apps on my iPad. I have been told multiple times to stop it, but it’s so difficult. It makes class so much harder because I have to constantly keep reopening apps and waiting for them to load.

Three Things to Improve On

#1 – Not Procrastinating

Throughout the year so far I have gotten distracted in class time quite a lot due to socializing and hanging out with my friends. For the rest of the year I need to prioritize work over chatting and spend my class time wisely, because everything that isn’t done in class, gets done at home.

#2 – Time Management

I have a very busy after school schedule due to the amount of sports I play. For the rest of the year I want to get on top of everything so that I don’t get stressed about homework or my activity. I want to make a calendar for all of my activities and due dates, so that I know when I have time to work and when I can’t. If I can do that I can make sure I get everything done on time.

#3 – Taking Notes on Lessons

In elementary school I would always have a little notepad out explaining what we learned each day and what we did. It made reflections way easier and it helped with homework too. I want to get back into that habit as a way to engage myself more into what I’m learning each day so the informations sticks.

I’m proud of the work I’ve done so far in PLP and am so grateful for all the opportunities I’ve been given. It has really made me grow as a learner and I can’t wait to do more in the future.