(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 offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.) 

This post is all about a thing we call in PLP ‘Mpol’. Mpol stands for Mid Year Presentation of Learning. In this presentation I will be talking about my successes, things I could do better, my learning plan, and also some of my favourite projects. 

In the half of the year that has already gone by, I feel like I have accomplished a lot. The one  subject that I think I have done the best in is Humanities. In my learning plan for Humanities I set my expectations very high (Extending). I think I did this mostly because I like to challenge myself, and also because I know my brothers have high expectations for themselves and I like to take after them. 

 

My learning plan for Humanities specifically talks about taking a bunch of risks, and also going out of my comfort zone. I think that I have accomplished most of this this semester. 

In Humanities by itself we have already completed 3 projects, and 1 sprint. (A sprint is a one week project we do to improve on a certain skill.) All of these projects were very new and exciting, and have helped me improve as a learner.

 

The Outsiders (Link to My Project)

The Outsiders was our first project ever in PLP. This project was based off of the book, ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E Hinton. During this project we had to read The Outsiders with a small group of classmates in chunks of chapters, then complete a task that would reveal something about the book we might not have noticed. For the most part I really liked how we got the opportunity to talk among peers about things in the book we might not have understood, or even just things we thought were interesting. However, there were a few times where we all didn’t agree on something, or someone wanted to take charge of a discussion or something but somebody else didn’t want that person to. When ever this happened it led us off track quite a bit, and it was often hard to get back on track. These disagreements only happened a couple times each week.

Our Final product from this project

 

Power Play Project (Link to My Project)

This project was our second Humanities project and in my opinion, it went very well. In this project we learned about The Crusades and Middle Ages and how back then the quest for power impacted peoples lives. This project was really new for me as I have never learned about anything like this before. 

This project out of all of my projects best represents an Extending understanding of the topic in my opinion. I think this because I met all of my learning goals in this one project (ie. going out of my comfort zone, providing help to peers, etc.) and received all rainbows, which was my goal. I think a reason for some of my success is my determination to the project, and receiving a grade that I can be proud of.

 

Radical Invocations (Link to my project) 

This was our third and final project in semester one of Humanities. This project I found had some of the hardest task, even though when I look back on it they seem easy. During this project we were making a piece of art from the Renaissance called a Triptych. A Triptych is a way of communicating anything from a story to a lesson to a historical event, and were often found in important places such as Church’s. 

Some assignments in this project were very tough on me as a learner because I didn’t know how to do them or hadn’t done them before. I think that struggling was honestly good for me because it reminded me that I should always be shooting for the best product I can present, and that it isn’t always easy. During this project we learned how to use some very cool and helpful apps that I will definitely be using in the future. Most of these apps taught us how to photoshop and edit photos together so that we can create unique and accurate photos that represent our learning.

My Triptych

Some areas in this project that I think I could do better in are double checking the instructions during assignments, using my time efficiently, and also focussing on Ms.Willems when she explains the instructions of an assignment.

 

One area of my learning in humanities that I think I could improve on is my organization of assignments. I like to keep all of my due dates in my head which I am quickly learning is not an efficient system, because I will now and again forget about an assignment and hand it in late. I can help myself by using an app we are given called ‘Things’. Things is a task manager that is very helpful, especially when you have a lot of things to keep track of. I don’t use Things that often because I find that I have to go out of my way to put it in the app. I think that Things is a very helpful and important tool that I could and should utilize.

 

Maker

Maker easily the most unique class I have ever been in. I really like Maker because it is not like any other class I am in this semester, and also because I can use my creativity almost every day.

My learning plan is mostly about improving general skills, like collaboration, creative process (or Launch), and also giving and receiving helpful and/or critical feedback. I think that I did quite well when it came to giving advice. An example of me giving helpful feedback is one of our projects: Making Interesting images. 

 

Making Interesting Images(Yet Another Link to My Project)

During this project we were given the opportunity to give and receive helpful feedback. I really enjoyed this because I thought that a new perspective from another person on our images was very beneficial. I also enjoyed giving feedback to people because I realized how effective good feedback can be. 

The one thing that I really didn’t like about this though is how people would not actually try to give feedback, but instead just write something useless down like, ‘I like the Colours’, or even just ‘nice job’. I know that our teachers can’t hold everybody’s hands while teaching how to give feedback or it wouldn’t be truly there honest advice, I just hoped that everybody gave as much effort on giving feedback as they hoped to receive in their’s.

one of my photos

 

Overall looking back on my first semester in PLP, I think that I have met my goals, while also improving in all the places where I had hoped to. I have created pieces of work that I can be proud of, while also learning how to be a part of my class. Looking forward to the rest of the year, I hope to be able to continue developing my skills as a PLP learner, as well as provide work in every project that shows a complete and sophisticated understanding of the topic.

Thank you to listening to my first ever Mpol. I hope that I have shared with you how I think my projects have gone so far, and what I am looking forward to next semester.