How I feel about mPOLs:

mPOL vs Jordyn Round 3. Somehow we are back here three years later. I don’t really know how I managed to get myself into this again but here we are, here I am presenting to you my Mid-Year Presentation of Learning. And again, mPOL has taken the win, 3 points for mPOL and 0 for Jordyn. As always, this is a very nerve-wracking experience so if you are new here, this is because I basically have to present what I have learned so far this year as well as how I will grow as a learner by the end of the year to my teachers and parents. Hi mom and dad, hi Ms.Willemse, Mr. Hughes, and Ms.Maxwell if you are reading this! Just so you know I am scared! Anyways back to the blog post which is the part I am actually super excited about because I have developed the perfect metaphor to describe this growth and learning based on successes and failure. It may even be better (and more entertaining) than Jordyn’s Growth Garden, but you can be the judge. I like to call it…. My Plan to Reach the Peak of My Learning! 

Yes, like a mountain summit. I will ski down some green runs, some blue runs, some black diamonds, maybe even some double black diamonds to get there. But I will get there. I will have some amazing, perfect runs but I will also have some more challenging ones. I may even wipeout! But I will still reach the peak of my learning this year by reflecting on the work I have done, my Learning Plan, and these 2 driving questions:

“How have I demonstrated growth as a leaner so far this year?”

“How can I sharpen my learning plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?”

Luckily for you, I have documented some of my most gnarly ski crashes (they are not staged at all I promise) to represent my places for improvement for each project. I have also documented some of my best ski days to represent the parts of each project that I loved! The juxtaposition of these two aspects of Think You Can Do Better, Manhattan Project2, and Playlist of My Life will shed light on how I have grown and how I will continue to grow as a leaner, how I will reach my learning goals and the peak. Of course, I am you host Jordyn Eyton here on My Dog Ate My Blog and I present to you… my Mid-Year Presentation of Learning! Drop the curtain!

THINK YOU CAN DO BETTER?

Oh no! A double black diamond?!

Let’s start off strong with a good old double black diamond run. This project was, to say the least, very challenging just like a double black diamond. It is very intimidating at the beginning, has lots of obstacles through out, lots of twists and turns, moments of strength, and maybe not the best outcome. This is exactly how my project, The Ubiquitous Party of Canada, rolled out. Let’s talk about my crash first, what I FAILed (First Attempt In Learning) at in this project. If you have read any of my blog posts about politics or government (Election Reflection or even our Press Release), you know how I feel about that particular subject. Spoiler alert! Not good. I typically enjoy everything that I learn about but when I hear the words parliament and ideology, my usual eagerness and inspiration fades away which is where I believe my project went wrong.

Crash #1 – The Reverse

With passion comes extra work outside of school and this was definitely the piece that was missing from our final video. In grade 11, we were introduced to the Zettlekasten and it changed my life. Craft was a platform that worked really well for me and I found that it worked wonders when it came to research and writing; I was never starting from scratch. Though, I definitely struggled to transfer that knowledge over this year, especially starting with a project that I didn’t instantly find “easy”. As a leader in my group, I definitely saw this lack of note taking and research shine through in our press release and video; we focused a lot on what we would want in a government which is simple because you just have to think about what you value, but we didn’t focus much on HOW we would actually do that (the more structural, ideological side of things that I struggle with).

You can really see what’s missing in our press release; this was definitely the weakest link

To reach the peak of my learning, I will utilize my zettlekasten to help me deepen my understanding of more complicated topics. I also know that I have to become more comfortable with subjects I find challenging; challenging yourself is an important part, if not the most important part, of growth as learner. I know we will be talking a bit about politics in our coming project so I am excited to begin working on thee goals and developing new skills to meet my learning plan goals.

Now that we have touched on some goal setting for this upcoming semester, let’s talk about how I have grown in the semester we just finished.

Success #1 – My first pow day!

This photo represents this part of the project perfectly for me. This was when I learned how to ski in powder, it was a breakthrough day for me as a skier. This parallels perfectly to a portion of “Think You Can Do Better?” that I actually grew to love, just like I eventually grew to love powder after many many crashes and lost skis far beneath the snow.

My interpretation of the election

Although I may not find the political and governmental structure themselves very interesting, I became invested in the election, the media and ads associated with it, and the statistics/results. I could comprehend enough of what was happening in our society at the time to be confident in my conclusions and utilize them in my final project. I was working in a very diverse group, one that had many different ideas of what a party should include which definitely made matter more difficult. If you had asked me last year what I would want in a party, nothing would have come to mind. But because I took the time to understand a very important responsibility that we have as citizens of a democracy (voting), I was brave enough to voice my own opinions and it worked to my benefit.

In my learning plan, I stated that I aim to be confident in my ideas and confident in my opinions, enough to voice them. This was a very challenging project for me but I believe I finally showed growth in my understanding of Canadian politics, my values, and how to voice these opinions to others despite how intimidating it can be.

MANHATTAN PROJECT PROJECT

Continuing on with our theme of skiing and the mountains, if I were to rate this project on a scale of green circle (easiest run) to double black diamond (most difficult run), I would rate it a black diamond which is right in the middle of the scale. But on any run, easy or difficult, you can fall and tumble down the mountain so let’s investigate what I learned from that in the Manhattan Project squared.

Crash #2 – Lost in a cloud of snow

What is interesting about this project is that the place where I created some space for growth was actually my favourite part of the project. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel study we did, analyzing it, inquiring about themes and purposes as well as connecting it to us today. I even received a rainbow on my final journal entry so at this point you are probably wondering why I consider this one of the things I am least proud of this year. This is because of the Socratic Seminars and something that was a big part of my learning plan from the beginning of the year.

I am very good, and have consistently been getting better since grade 8, at writing and putting my ideas and arguments in that writing but they tend to get stuck there. I found that during Socratic Seminars, I would have nothing to say even though I had all of my notes and arguments prepared in the book, Hiroshima, and in my zettlekasten. I challenged myself to butt in and speak a couple times but I would get SO nervous. In grade 8 and 9, presentations in front of people were no big deal for me but since grade 10 they have become more and more difficult. 

To reach my peak of learning this year, I will challenge myself to speak in group setting and share my ideas. This will build on being more confident in my arguments and opinions, releasing them from my writing.

With a negative there always comes a positive so let’s talk about some of the work I am proud of! 

Success #2 – Blue Bird Day

Despite the fact that my entire project literally came crashing down at the end of the exhibition and shattered all over the floor, I believe that it went REALLY well. I grew as a learner in two big areas: abstract connection and analysis of text so I will talk a bit about these as they are skills that I have been building since grade 8 PLP. As we learned about the atomic bomb and development of it, I immediately connected the atomic chain reaction to a metaphorical chain reaction that happened over time creating this statement to describe my conceptual art piece:

“The scientific chain reaction that created Little Boy and Fat Man never ended; it continued on to develop new science and technology across disciplines. Just like the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima changed the course of history, each of our actions and decisions surrounding technology and science now reflect the future ahead of us.”

I continued to connect this back to us and how the science developed during the project is still relevant all around us today. Because of this, I am very proud of the Artist’s statement that I wrote for the night of the exhibition as well as the presentations I did for visitors.

My chain reaction infinity mirror

I mentioned this a bit above but I really thrived as we, first, analyzed Hiroshima, and then further critiqued it. Although this was definitely a challenge, it pushed my thinking a lot further than I thought it could go and this new knowledge really helped me in the project that came after it.

In my learning plan, I talked a lot about how I wanted to build on my writing and this project provided exactly what I needed to do that. The new levels of analysis and critique that we worked on pushed my learning to a sophisticated level. Another one of my strengths that I wanted to work on more this year was connecting ideas, complex, abstract ideas. I was really successful in doing this for “Manhattan Project Squared”: Connecting the development of the atomic bomb, to the Hiroshima event and book, to atomic and nuclear science, to a chain reaction, to us today.

PLAYLIST OF MY LIFE

It’s quite surreal to be reflecting on this project again so soon as I have literally just finished my unit learning portfolio post on it only a couple of days ago. Being that we have just finished this project, it is very fresh in my mind so I will stop blabbering on about nothing and get to the part that you actually want to hear. 

 

I just want to clarify that the green circle DOES NOT mean that this project was easy. It means that this was the project I believe I have done best on as it is mostly cumulative of a lot of the skills I have been working on since the beginning of high school. Very similar to a green run! I have learned snow plow, I have learned pizzas and French fries, I have learned how to carve and go fast, I have learned how to do little jumps and drops without many accidents. Still, every once and a while, I will turn a little to hard, catch an edge and end up like this:

Crash #3 – Garage sale

Yes, it is very unfortunate but don’t worry I am ok! Just like I am ok and learn from my mistakes in projects like the Playlist of My Life so let’s look at an example of that.

It always comes back to Things doesn’t it. This is a very minor issue I had during this project that was one of my habits I wanted to build in my learning plan for success. This is time management. I won’t go into too much detail other than the goal that I really want to set for myself:

 

I will use Things and my calendar to organize due dates and manage my time better. I have a very full course load so this will be key to reaching the peak of my learning by the end of the year. I will finish assignments and tasks a day before they are due so that I have ample time to edit and receive feedback from teachers and peers, helping me create work that is not rushed and that I am proud of. One more thing, a little note to myself DON’T OVER THINK EVERYTHING! Alright, that’s it, thank you.

For most of the duration of green runs, it is just cruising so let’s talk about that in terms of The Playlist of My Life.

Success #3 – Sunset with Sloan

Although we had very minimal time to complete this project, I fuelled it with my passion for music, undoubtedly creating a final product that I am extremely proud of. I have always loved analyzing poetry and studying literary devices so to translate this to music was very very exciting. 

  • Devil’s Haircut by Beck

Through these annotations, I demonstrated to myself that I could analyze and comprehend text at a very deep level and then continue to write about it at a sophisticated level. Again, I illustrated my ability to connect topics back to myself and show the relevance of significance of that.

Each of these songs are extremely important to me, my life, and how I have become a unique individual and being able to pinpoint that invoked the same feeling that a perfect run down the hill does.

I was really given the opportunity to bring myself into my work for this project which is something I know I want to try to do because it creates amazing results. I also created a compelling presentation and engaged my listeners in it which is something I had wanted to work on as I mentioned earlier.

IN CONCLUSION….

That took a long time. The end. Nah, I’m just kidding. Yes, this post took a while to write but it really gave me an opportunity to reflect on all of the learning I have done this year and think about how I can grow. I know that the projects I have done so far will aid me in my projects that will bring my time in PLP to a close. The lessons that I have learned from them, the spaces for improvement that I can see provide framework for absolutely killer results for the rest of the year. I will tidy up my learning plan, click into my skis and prepare to do what ever it takes (hike, ski, roll down the hill) to reach the peak of my learning. I know there will be some tumbles a long the way but I will use them to my benefit, reflect on them and improve again by the time my fPOL rolls around in June. By then, I hope to use my zettlekasten and all the power it holds,  challenge myself to share ideas and opinions in group settings, as well as mange my time better. To maximize success I will combine these goals with the progress I have already made this year. Just like skiing, PLP and grade 12 are challenging but I am prepared to face it head on and produce sophisticated level work that I am proud of.

Thank you for listening to my mPOL if you are my teachers or parents and thank you to anyone else who has taken the time to read this post. This is Jordyn Eyton, signing off on my final mPOL. See you next time 🙂