“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”
Successes 📈
Even though there was some rough patches and things I could fix in the future I think I’ve actually improved quite a bit over the course of the year as I improved a lot in many different skills which have helped me in PLP, other classes and will definitely continue to help me in the future.
Editing/video skills:
The main focus for this year was the moving image which naturally meant that the year became filled with an array of different skills we had to learn and practice throughout the year including editing, using different angles to keep the viewer compelled, using the moving image to show emotion, a story and an overall message. I honestly believe that there is a couple of great examples of projects that allowed me to refine my skill but one of the biggest is probably my rube Goldberg machine documentary. While it’s true that in the beginning of the year my editing and overall video making skills weren’t great I feel like this video allowed me to take a couple of creative liberties which included exploring different transitions, angles and even sound effects in the video. This resulted in a project which I was proud of as even if it wasn’t the most interesting or aesthetically pleasing video I still think I took a risk by including this many transitions, angles and sound effects. Not to mention I also begun using CapCut for the video which allowed me to familiarize with the key parts of editing far quicker than I would have with any other app. The biggest takeaway from the project was all the different skills I learned along the way which managed to help me a lot when it came to my future projects.
Design skills:
When I first joined this program the best I could do for any type of presentation design wise was a template. I couldn’t be bothered to do anything more than that as I simply believed that it was completely pointless but as time passed inside of the program I realized just how important it was as it actually hooks the audience and captivates them into reading or looking at the product itself. I actually learned this through seeing what my other classmates did inside of PLP which actually caught my attention quite a lot. So for the remainder of that year I continued improving my skills to the point where I could make my own template with drawings colours and descriptions that fit the context of the presentation well but this year I feel like we took it to the next level. When I started in grade 9 I noticed that my work could be elevated to a whole other level if I added a theme as it captivated the audience even more and made them interested in the topic itself, I also realized I could display emotion with simple colour changes, animations and graphics. The best example I could really find to represent this was my stages of the American Revolution project as I added both graphics, colours and images to represent patriotism which I think even managed to add to the points I illustrated in the text. Nowadays my projects are consistently designed with a theme and a purpose and usually display an emotion or an idea that adds to what I’m trying to say in my project.
Success behaviours for the future 🔮
There’s no doubt this year has been pretty good but there might be a few things that I could vastly improve on to help me along high school and any other future endeavours. Probably the biggest one of these is handing in assignments on time.
Recently I’ve had the bad habit of procrastinating huge assignments and trying to finish them in their entirety one day before they are due. This hasn’t only caused me to stress out a ton but it’s also largely affected the quality of my work which is one of the things I value the most. To stop this I’ve actually begun to use Things to remind myself what I need to work on each day and when everything is due.
Another thing that has greatly affected me is getting off task be it games or social media. I often begin to get distracted when things get too hard which actually causes my assignments to be late (as I take way longer to finish them because I’m constantly getting distracted) and also worsens the quality of my work as when the assignment is past due I really just want to get it over with and most of my drive to make it something I’m proud of fades. To fix this I’ve decided to limit my screen time in settings which basically blocks out all games and distractions from my I-pad.
Overall I feel like these skills should help me become a better student in the future by allowing me to work on my assignments as much as I possibly can, deliver something that I’m proud of and simply have a good amount of free time where I don’t really have to worry about any assignments.
Examples 🏆
Work that didn’t reach my standards (what I learnt from them):
Even though I showed a lot of improvement this year there’s still some assignments which I feel weren’t up to my standards be it because of the low amount of effort put into it or because I didn’t completely follow the criteria. Probably the biggest example of this is my investigative video as I felt like I had a couple of great interviews but I was too lazy to put it all together into a reflective video on the West and simply copy and pasted the interviews and called it a day. Although it was really rough at least I learnt the importance of hard work as if I would have tried, done it on time and really reflected on it I feel like I could have made something I was actually proud of. This failure also motivated me to try harder in future endeavours and resulted in some of my best work right after (Rube Goldberg Documentary). Another project that didn’t really reach my standards was the geography Comic life. It was actually a pretty small project but I didn’t feel like I dug deep enough in my reflection as I really only used baseline knowledge and didn’t really do any real thinking or research of my own. Fortunately much like the other failure this one helped me realize how important it is to reflect because that’s the whole point of these projects, to actually takeaway something important from each project, even if I don’t remember every small detail.
Overall goal for the rest of the school year:
Finally, to summarize it all I want to avoid all distractions while I still have work due, hand in everything on time, be proud of what I do and go deep in each and every one of my reflections. Because if there’s no real takeaway from a project, no real lesson then what was really the point. If I’m not proud of what I do and don’t really learn any skills or anything that could be valuable in the future then what’s the point of even studying. That’s why I want to reflect on my learning, learn different skills and be proud of my work, because someday, somehow it’ll help me later on down the line.