Kaia’s Learning Portfolio

“My entire personality hurts.”

– Charlie B, September 18 2023 – 3:45 pm, Sulphur Mountain

Bonjour et bienvenue to another Humanities blog post, about our trip to Alberta (that involved a lot of hiking) and our first project of grade 9 that we completed on the trip. Our driving question for this project is ‘how has the geography of the West shaped who we are?’ To answer this question we created a comic representing the 5 themes of geography and a book reflecting on the locations we went to on the trip. 

One of the main things I learned during this section was the 5 themes of geography: Location, Place, Human-Environment Interaction, Movement and Regions. These themes affect me because they shape my understanding and my view of places. Human-Environment Interaction is the ways I interact with the environment and Movement often relies on these interactions. When I travel, the Location, Place and Regions change my perspectives, comparisons and connections between my present and past locations. To show my understanding of these 5 themes, I created a little comic with pictures to represent each theme and a few words to help explain the picture and theme. For an explanation of the themes and my comic life, read my Alberta book (the next part of this post). Here is my Comic Life:

The other part of this project to show evidence for the driving question was the Alberta Book Creator. In this book I reflected on my geography comic (as well as my Maker videos, which you can read more about in my Maker post). I also reflected on the geography, the political, social and economic significance and my personal connections for many of the places we visited on our Alberta trip. Before this trip, I never really thought about the impact different places have on geography and history and even me. I also realized how every place is important in shaping the world and has a story and even if I visit places that I don’t find super interesting, I still probably have a connection to them in some way. This is my Alberta Book:

As well, for one of my Maker videos, I created a thesis to help answer the Humanities driving question too, and then interviewed people I met on the trip to determine whether I was correct. My thesis was ‘People come to these unique natural places to experience the beautiful scenery and connect with nature.’ I chose to focus on the natural aspects of the West, because I know that personally nature has and continues to shape who I am and how I see the world. I think that I was right, though some people might not go to the specific places where I interviewed them, in general people come to the West to experience the natural areas. Having a value and connection with nature shapes care and appreciation for it, which is especially important with climate change being a current issue. Click here for my Maker Blog Post.

In conclusion, I learned a lot in this project and on the trip. I learned about the CPR, geography, nature and so much more. I had lots of fun on the trip too, making memories with my friends. Thanks for reading, that’s all for now!

Kaia out!

Bonjour!

This blog post is my first Maker project of grade 9, which we partially completed while we were on the PLP Alberta trip last week. For this project, I made 4 different styles of videos to help answer the driving question, ‘how might I use the moving image to tell a story?’ 

The first video was a silent video made in groups and I worked with Aiya, Sunny and Esther! I think that this is the video that I learned the most from. Because silent videos have no speech and no sound (other than music) we had to be able to still tell the story without those. To help make our story we wrote a story spine, which is 9 sentence starters that create a story. This was our story spine.

After writing the story spine, we researched filming locations in the Three Valley Gap Ghost Town, where we filmed our movies. I also learned how props and costumes help tell the story and add details to the character, so I brought a dress because it is a well known stereotype to show that I was the woman and help give contrast to the rest of my group who had male characters. They used mascara to draw moustaches or beards. As well, I learned that since you don’t have words, you have to compensate with your actions, by having over-exaggerated expressions and movements. Using digital enchantments like filters or music also helps tell a story. Making this video was also a review of how to take a good shot, like angles, background and foreground and positioning the subject. Anyways, I learned a lot making this video and that audio isn’t required to tell a story with the moving image. This is my silent video, called The Love Square:

The second video style that I made was TikTok styled videos, basically short little videos that tell a story, similar to reels on TikTok. Before this project, I never realized how TikTok or Instagram reels tell a short story and I learned how to tell a story through a video like this. I decided to tell the story of our trip, specifically all of the lakes we visited. I chose to do a transition video and instead of using a popular trend, I decided to make my own transition. Making this video helped me learn and improve how to angle the camera so that it was level and so the lake was in the background. I also learned how music can help tell a story if the song matches the vibe and mood of the video. I used the used the song ‘the lakes’ by Taylor Swift because she is my favourite singer and Folklore is my favourite album and it goes perfectly with the theme of the video. This is my transition video:

I also helped make two other videos. I think that making videos with other people improved my collaboration and communication skills because we had to communicate about how and where we were filming the video, and get the timing in sync. This is the video that I made with Alva and Aiya:

This is the other video I helped create, with Alva, Aiya and Esther:

Another video style I made was the Investigative video. This video was made to answer not just our Maker driving question, but the Humanities driving question too: ‘how has the geography of the West shaped who we are?’ To answer this question through the video, everyone created their own personal thesis. I chose to focus on the natural aspects of the West and my thesis was ‘People come to these unique natural places to experience the beautiful scenery and connect with nature.’ To gather evidence of whether our theses were right or not, on the trip everyone did individual interviews and asked people questions related to their thesis. I did 3 different interviews, at natural locations (Athabasca Glacier, Larch Valley and Lake Louise). I found that the interviewees’ answers mostly supported my thesis. For more about my thesis and Humanities, read my Humanities Blog Post. As well, my goal for this trip was to get better at talking to strangers and people I don’t know very well, which I think I definitely improved on. My first interview was about 55 seconds and my last interview was 1 minute and 40 seconds. Anyways, this is my Investigative video and thank you again so much to my interviewees and to Aiya for filming!

The last video that I made was back at home, about what inspires me. Before this, I wasn’t completely sure what inspires me, but by making this video I learned how my passions and skill, goals, interests and daydreams give me inspiration. Though I have made a few storyboards in the past, during this video I learned how to decide which scenes were the most important to draw on my storyboard. This is part of my storyboard (draft).

I also improved on choosing music to match the vibe of this video too. In this video I think that I told the story of my past (for example, when I used to homelearn), the present (my current passions, my family and friends) and the future (like my daydreams). Here is my What Inspires Me video:

In conclusion, I really enjoyed making these videos, and learned a lot about how to tell a story through the moving image, through different lengths and formats of videos, and using audio, music, effects or text to help enhance the story. 

Kaia out!

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.

First my learning plan. I set Extending as my proficiency for all of my PLP classes, which I have been maintaining so far. At the start of the year I also chose competencies for Communication, Thinking and Personal and Social.

Over the course of this year, and even just this semester, I have really improved on my Communication with both teachers and classmates. Now that I know everyone better, I am a lot more comfortable and confident talking to them. Examples of this include asking for clarification on an assignment, getting and giving critique, sharing my ideas or opinions and being a bit more of a leader in my groups. I think that I have mostly achieved a profile 5, however I can still improve on communication with those I am not quite as familiar with.

I have also improved on Collaboration. Especially towards the start of the year, I didn’t really like group work. Though I am still a perfectionist and like to have everything done my way, I have gotten better at making compromises. I have definitely gotten closer to a profile 4, but I often just focus on getting all the work done, and in my way of doing it, and not always including everyone or sharing the work evenly.

The Spring Exhibition is an example of these two competencies. I was in a group of 7 (my advertisement group). Since we weren’t always all together in class, it required a lot of communication, both in our one shared class and over messages to figure out what needed to be done still.  Everyone had different ideas for our booth, so we had to think of ways to satisfy everyone, which relates to collaboration. We also only had a few days to prepare, so we had to really work together to finish everything in time. As well, because of my spare, I was able to go to either block 6 or 8 and work with different halves of my group.

I have always been a creative thinker, but over this year I have become even more so. One example of my Creative Thinking was the GIFs we made in Science about one of the theories we had learned. A lot of people did the same theory and therefore had similar GIFs, so I changed Continental Drift to Swift, to make mine more unique and also relate to me and lots of other swifties. I think I have achieved a profile 5, because not only do I have creative ideas, I continue developing them further.

For Critical Thinking, I have really improved and have mostly achieved a profile 5. An example of my critical thinking was the Consequences of Colonization video script. Using my images and all the learning from this unit, I had to choose the most important and relevant parts, make connections and conclusions and combine it into a script that answered our driving question.

Next Personal and Social. In school and outside of school too, I am always aware of the consequences my actions may have and try to only be around people who have a positive impact on me.

Another aspect of Personal and Social is time management, which I have really improved on since last semester. For the most part I had a good balance between homework and the rest of my life. Towards the end of the year I was a bit busier and struggled more to get everything done in time. I made systems at the start of the year and also a made schedule recently, but I didn’t end up using either of these. An example of where I used good time management was the Renaissance project. For the first Keystone, we had to create a schedule and add the due dates and work times into Things and Calendar. Because of this, I was able to pace my work so that everything was done in time. For next year, I would like to do this again for all my projects.

Now that I’ve reflected on the competencies, I am going to talk about some projects that I haven’t mentioned yet, that are good examples to show my learning.

The project I was the least happy with was in Maker, called Making Interesting Images, which was learning and practicing photography skills for a week in November. Although I did complete all the skills, I felt I didn’t really have the time to take nice photos. I think it would have been better if I had focused on taking one quality image for each skill. This relates back to time management: maybe if I had figured out how much time I had for each image, or was at least able to have time to work on it at home.

On the other hand, one of the projects I am most proud of was Keystone 2 of the Power Play project in Humanities. After learning about the Middle Ages, we created a presentation about the feudal system and Middle Ages. I was really happy with how it turned out; I think that it had a good balance of text and visuals, including the little drawings I did too and all the animations. This project required both creative and critical thinking. I used creative thinking for the layout and design, and critical thinking for collecting and putting information into words that answered the topic on each slide and the driving question.

In Science, we have done a lot of interesting projects and I have learned a lot and become a lot more interested in science. I loved everything we did, but of one of my favourite projects was Small but Mighty. In Keystone 2 everyone created little character cards for the cells in the immune system. In this project, I used creative thinking again. The cells in the drawings all have something related to their role and have an alliteration for a name, but the most creative part was the email, which specified if they were part of the innate or adaptive immune system and most of all the addresses. For example, Watson the White Blood Cell’s street number is 911, because he alerts others. Macrophages “eat” pathogens to destroy them, and 812 sounds like “ate one too”.

Finally I am going to reflect on the Medium is the Message project and our trip to Oregon. To make my ad, I used creative thinking for the designing part. Though everyone created their own advertisement, we were in groups with those who had the same company. Because of this I also showed communication and collaboration skills, like sharing ideas, preparing for the interview and, as said above, the Spring Exhibition. This is the project we did while on our Oregon trip. Along with more academic knowledge, Oregon made me learn some life skills. I had to be more independent and organized, which kind of fits under the responsibility part of Personal and Social, as well as money management. I also improved on communication by interviewing my company. 

In conclusion, I think that all of this shows that I am ready to advance to the next grade level and the ups and downs and memories that await.

Bonjour!

This blog post is about my first Spring Exhibition! My grade presented our advertisement project, for which the driving question was how does advertising persuade, sell and influence society? 

My group’s company was Hatfield Marine Science Center, but we were supposed to focus mainly on the Visitor Center there. We did some simple research about our company before going to Oregon, where we got to interview the Marine Education and Outreach Coordinator. When we got back, we started creating our ads and learned about advertising techniques and appeals, design techniques and pathos, ethos and logos. We made several drafts and got critique until our ad was approved. Everyone also filled out two LAUNCH journals, one which we had along with our ads at the exhibition. Here is my ad and LAUNCH presentation.

For the Exhibition we had to have costumes, decorations and food to match our company’s theme. My group decided to wear all blue (since nobody except me had orange, which is the main colour) with octopus hats and our food was goldfish crackers and sea-animal gummies. For decor, we decorated the ad-displays with blue paper with waves and sea-animals, paper seaweed and green streamers along the front of our table with some blue and orange on top. We also had Ms. Kadi’s octopus stuffie. Considering the amount of time we had to prepare, it was pretty good, but I think that it would have been better if we had more orange.

I was right beside Annie and Alva, so a lot of people who came to our station would talk to all three of us at once. Since I find public speaking and talking to people I don’t know stressful, it was nice to not have to do it all alone.  However, in the future I think it would be better if I talked more, because I let Annie and Alva do most of the talking.

In conclusion, I learned a lot more about advertising and design, and had an overall great Exhibition!

Kaia out ♥︎

Here are the links to my group members’ blogs:

Alva

Annie

Danica

Signe

Max

Caelum

Bonjour!

This blog post is about my first PLP field study! I was on trip 1 and over the course of a week we went to Warrenton and Newport in Oregon and Tenino in Washington. This blog post is mostly about what I learned, but there are details about the specific things we did in the book at the bottom.

On the first day, we went to where two explorers, Lewis and Clark, set up camp. Since the weather was damp and cold when they came here, the place was named Dismal Nitch. 

We also went to the Astoria column and climbed the 164 steps to the top. The column is covered in friezes, which I learned is a type of artwork in a long horizontal form. 

At Fort Stevens State Park Historic Area we got a tour of the fort and learned a lot about how things worked and what each room was. One technique they used was to use a weight to keep the guns out of view from attackers: when the weight went down, the gun went up, then the power of the shot would make it go back down again. There were also reenactors there who knew a lot about the war and had items from the war too. I thought the medics were really interesting because they told us about their roles and equipment (since I also wrote about this in my book, I won’t get too detailed here too). Office worker reenactors showed us some of the equipment that the soldiers had, like a container that could be a dish or a pan with cutlery that could be attached on to be stored more compactly. They had breakfast and other meal kits, which included different foods that were usually heated up and eaten. The soldiers were also given chewing gum, to give them a bit of happiness.

Our first stop on day three was the Columbia River Maritime Museum, where we looked at several exhibits. I learned about the dangerous crossing of the (Columbia River) Bar and  Yosegaki Hinomaru (Japanese flags covered in names and messages from their loved ones). The most interesting things for me were about the Chinook peoples and their value of Western Red cedar, and a display about the Titanic, including images of some of the rooms and a newspaper written about the Titanic. 

At Yaquina Head, I learned a lot from Ms. Kadi about the sea animals in the tide pools. One of my favourite animals was the Gumboot Chiton, also known as the Wandering Meatloaf. There were also seals with their babies or giving birth. At the Interpretation Center, I learned about the history of the lighthouse built in 1871 and first lit in 1873. Eventually the light’s power source changed from oil to electricity.

We went to Hatfield Marine Science Center twice. First we looked at the visitor center and then did an experiment with racing crabs. My group did an experiment to see if male or female crabs are faster (more about this in the book). I learned about how to create an experiment and the steps involved. The next day we went back to Hatfield Marine Science Center, where we did two more activities. First, we used a pump to collect shrimp out of the sand. Then we measured their carapace, identified their gender, if they were pregnant and if they had a parasite. For the second activity, we built a R.O.V. I’m not really into engineering, but it was a fun activity and I learned the parts needed and how to design an R.O.V.

Finally, (my second favourite place) Wolf Haven. I learned how to be able to guess the animal based off of its skull, like size, eye sockets and teeth. By looking at teeth, it’s possible to tell if an animal is a carnivore, omnivore or herbivore. Sharp teeth and big canines means they are a carnivore and the opposite for herbivores.

I also learned important skills like being more independent, because I didn’t have family to help or remind me of things. I had to be organized and keep track of all my stuff. By interviewing my company I worked on getting better at speaking to people I’m not familiar with, especially adults. I also improved on this when I was buying stuff, which also relates to money management, making sure it was a reasonable and good purchase and thinking ahead so that my money lasted for the whole trip.

My favourite part of the trip was Highlife Adventures, where we went zip lining. We went on 8 courses through the forest, some over a lake. At first I thought that it would be out of my comfort zone a bit, but the lines gradually got longer or higher and the lines were built in a secure way with a good braking system, so I was easily able to trust it. I ended up having a lot of fun and was only scared once, when a Sasquatch came out of the bush and stood behind me.

We stayed at Camp Kiwanilong in cabins for 2 nights. I was in the large cabin (with Sunny), which was by the edge of the forest and only the PLP group was staying at the camp, so it had a really creepy vibe. Then we stayed in yurts at South Beach State Park, where it wasn’t as creepy. On the last night we went to Fairfield Hotel and got to go swimming.

Overall, it was an amazing trip! We did a lot of fun activities and I learned a lot. It was good to become closer with my friends and also get to know others better too. I also managed to survive the long drives by listening to my Taylor Swift playlist (well, and taking my motion-sickness medication) and more Taylor Swift in the van with Ms.Kadi too. I got some cute souvenirs, like little gemstone mushrooms and my favourite, the mini-cheesegrater. And I have a lot of memories too!

Here is the book that we filled out during our trip:

Kaia out ♥︎

Bonjour!

Welcome to another Humanities post. Our past unit was about colonization and the driving question was: What did European settlement mean for all involved? This sector had 3 keystones which consisted of an art-chart, a re-interpreted image (along with another art-chart) and then the script for our AR video, the final project.

For Keystone one, our guiding question was: What changed about European powers’ worldview? We learned about the Europeans’ and the Indigenous’ views on each other and how the Europeans looked down on other cultures outside of Canada or even beyond North America, the fur trade, and making inferences from images, which led to our first Keystone. We picked an artwork (by C.W. Jefferys) from a list, and then filled out two charts about it. The first chart was more explicit observations, through the 5W’s. The second one was implicit, including the focus, symbolic qualities and messages. I found the second one slightly harder, because I had to look at characteristics like size or colour to determine what the artist was trying to convey. Here is my art-chart for the artwork “Arrival of the Brides at Québec”.

Keystone two’s essential question was: What were the consequences of the European powers’ change in worldview at the time? We learned about and examined the motivations and results of European settlement. Then, using the same artwork as earlier, we reinterpreted it, changing the focus or perspective and incorporating the cause and consequence. Though I knew I wanted to make it from the perspective of the women, les Filles du Roi, it was hard to think of ways to show what I was trying to represent. Next, we had to fill out a chart that explains our images and the changes. In the end, I am pretty happy with how my re-interpreted image turned out. This is my re-interpreted image and the art-chart for it.

In Keystone three, the essential question was: What are the consequences of colonization today? We learned about treaties, wars and changes of land possession. For the video script for the final product, we had to use our images, and all the learning to answer the driving question. At first I found it a bit hard to get started, but once I got all the information and notes I needed, it was easier to turn it into a word-for-word script. I think that it answers the driving question and includes everything necessary and I am overall pretty happy with it. Click below for my video script.

Video Script Link

Finally, we created the actual video. First I recorded the speaking part of my video, using the script. I did one paragraph at a time, so that I wouldn’t have to re-do as much if I messed up. Then, I used AR Makr to place my images on a real life surface and filmed the images, with my recordings playing in the background so that I could get the timing right. Next, I combined the audio and the video into iMovie, and adjusted the volume and time of it. To make the title, I used Keynote, then exported it as a movie and added it to my project, along with part of a music track on iMovie. This is my final product.

Video Link

In conclusion, though it is answered more thoroughly in my video, the main groups involved were the Indigenous peoples and the Europeans, mainly affected by greed, ethnocentrism and religion. In Europe there was inflation, which meant that the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. In North America, Europeans experienced increased demand for raw materials and had strict rules from the Mother Country of what they could do with them. Most women were sent by the king of France and had more freedom, but a hard life. The First Peoples suffered from loss of land, culture and rights, and both the Europeans and the Christians tried to convert them to their ways. Nowadays, consequences from these factors and events still exist, like Canada’s economy, the mistreatment of First Peoples, and racism and Christianity rooted in our society. Overall I learned a lot from this unit and that’s all for now!

Kaia out ♥︎

Bonjour!

In this unit of science, we learned about matter to answer the driving question: how does the behaviour of atoms influence the properties of solids, liquids, and gasses? It consisted of 3 keystones, an object description, a self-designed experiment and a video game pitch, for our final project, making a science video game to show at least one of the concepts we learned.

For the first keystone, we chose an object in the classroom. Then we determined its mass, volume, density and physical and chemical properties, as well as say if each characteristic was qualitative or quantitative. Then we put all the information together, without saying what the object was. I was happy with how it went, and I think that my measurements were mostly accurate, though it was hard to figure out the volume because it was so small. Here is mine, the answer to what the object post will be at the end of the post.

The second keystone, in small groups, we designed our own experiments, using gummy bears. We decided to put a whole gummy bear in one beaker of boiling water and a cut-up gummy bear in another beaker, also filled with boiling water, to figure out which would melt faster. I think that we had a well-developed experiment, that answered our guiding question and I also really like the Canva slideshow I made! Here is a presentation with the entire process, including our results. And thank you to my amazing group members: Esther and Meghan (names linked to their blogs)!

Presentation Link

The last keystone was to make a short pitch for our science video games. Though my idea wasn’t super fun, it was simple and showed one of our key concepts, how temperature affects the state of matter. This is my pitch.

For our final project, we actually created the video games, using Scratch. I used the drawing feature to create little green dots, and I tried to add smiley faces, however they ended up upside down or sideways later. I figured out how to make the dots disappear when tapped, however I couldn’t get them to move around how I wanted, so I found a game where the particles moved around, by a former PLP learner, Teva (thank you)! I used her code for a reference and managed to get them to move around. Overall, Scratch was mostly simple, easy and quick to use and I am mostly happy with my game. In the future, I would make it so that it doesn’t seem like particles disappearing make the heat rise and the state change. This is my game, the instructions are on the side.

Temperature Tap Game Link

In conclusion, I really liked this project and learned a lot. Also, my secret object from Keystone 1 was a bottle cap! That’s all for this post.

Kaia out ♥︎

Bonjour!

Welcome to my first science blog post! Our driving question was how can our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public health? This unit consisted of 3 keystones (a field journal, immune system character cards and a vaccine fear infographic) and then a final product (a health poster).

First the field journal. Before completing this keystone, we also learned about the cell theory and examined several different things under microscopes. For the actual field journal, everyone swabbed a commonly contacted surface(s) and put it in a Petri dish. Unfortunately I was away sick when this happened, but my AMAZING teacher, Ms. Kadi, made one for me! Over the next few days, we observed the growth of the little microorganisms, recording it in our field journals. Here is my field journal:

Kaia-Field Journal

Next the immune system character cards, one of my favourite projects. After learning about the innate and adaptive immune systems, we created a character card for 5 different cells: white blood cell, macrophage, B-cell, T-cell and antibody. I used Procreate to draw my characters and Canva to combine them with the info. One information we had to include was where they ‘live’, so I chose to make it like an address. When making up their street numbers (the first numbers of an address), I tried to find a creative reason for their numbers. For example, the Macrophage’s number is 812, because it sounds like ‘ate one too’ (which is exactly what they do) or the B-cell, 123, because they create antibodies so first there’s 1 antibody, then 2 and then 3! Anyways, here are my character cards:

In the third keystone, we created a infographic about a vaccine controversy or a reason why some people are hesitant to get vaccines. I worked with Esther (thank you for being an amazing partner!) and we did ours on government control, focusing on microchips and DNA being changed. We worked together to find information and Esther wrote our paragraphs, while I did the graphic designing part on Canva. Here is our infographic:

Finally, everyone created a health poster, with a catchy slogan and at least one of the pathogen drawings made by an elementary student. Using Canva again, I first did the layout (with a green aesthetic), then added my slogan and other text and the green pathogen drawn by Emily (thank you!). This was my other favourite project from this unit and the project I’m most proud of along with the character cards (if not more). Here it is:

In conclusion, this was a very interesting unit and I learned a lot! That’s all for this post!

Kaia out ♥︎

Bonjour,

Welcome to another Humanities blog post! Our last unit was about Vikings and explorers, however I am only going to be reflecting on the explorers. We started by writing a story based off of an explorer, then created images to go with it and finally put it together in a travelogue.

First the story. It had to be MAXIMUM 200 words (however our teacher moved it up to 300 thankfully) and exactly follow the story of an explorer, except for minor details. I chose to base it off of Jacques Cartier’s second voyage to Canada. I started by doing more research on him and his voyages. After struggling through writer’s block (especially because I have never written historical fiction before), I had my first draft, but it was about 650 words. Eventually, I managed to get it down to under 400 words, without completely ruining it. In the future, I’m not really sure how I can improve on this, because it was basically impossible to turn even one voyage into a story with under 200 words, while still having some detail.

Next the images. Everyone had to create (no just taking an image and using it as is) 5-10 images to go along with their stories, with at least 3 different formats/types. I chose to have one image per section, plus one for the cover. I made a plan of my images and then started making them. Here are my images, what they show and how I made them:

I think I would improve on my final image, because though it went with the section and was nice, it could have contributed more to the story. Either than that, I was very happy with how my images turned out!

Finally the travelogue. For this, we used the app Book Creator to assemble our story and images into a short travelogue. Once I had chosen the layout and style it was pretty easy putting it all together. My final book is below.

Though I mainly focused on the explorer projects during this unit, we also learned a lot about European explorer’s motivations (gold, glory and god), their technologies and specific explorers. Overall, I really enjoyed learning and creating throughout this sector! Here is my travelogue:

That’s all!

Kaia out ♥︎

Bonjour!

Welcome to my first mPol ever! In this post I will be reflecting on my growth as a learner so far and how I can continue to improve for the rest of the year. 

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.

First my learning plan… I set extending as my proficiency for all of my PLP classes, which I have been maintaining so far. At the start of the year, I also chose competencies for communication, thinking and personal and social.

COMMUNICATION

Throughout the first part of the school year, I have really improved on my communication with my teachers and peers. Some examples for this include contacting my teachers about catchup work when I miss school, asking for clarification on a project or assignment as well as planning and collaborating with other students.

I think I still need to improve on communication to achieve my profile 5, especially around confidence speaking to those I’m not as familiar with.

COLLABORATION

Though most of the projects so far were individual, I have definitely improved on my collaboration, especially because last year I struggled with group work because I am a perfectionist and like to have everything done my way. One of my main opportunities for growth on this was the winter exhibition, because I collaborated with a group of both my grade and the grade 9s. Though not everything was exactly how I would have liked it, I was very proud and happy with how our exhibition room turned out, which helped me realize that not everything has to be perfectly how I envisioned it and making compromises to satisfy everyone can still lead to a great final result.

CREATIVE THINKING

Though I have always been a very creative thinker, this semester has encouraged me to improve on this even further. For example, for the Pandora’s box project, I quite literally thought outside the box when instead of using a typical square box, I created my own round box to better represent my message.

I think that I have mostly achieved a profile 5, because I also had a few struggles with the creation of my box, but managed to persevere through them.

CRITICAL THINKING

For critical thinking, I have improved a lot but still have more growth for the rest of the year. I think that my most recent project about the renaissance is a good example for this. For this project, everyone created a triptych, showing pre-renaissance, renaissance and the present. I had to think of what themes/aspects to include to represent the different eras and then research what those things were like during each time and how to represent them. I also did a lot of research, which helped me improve on choosing the most important and useful parts to note and connect the ideas/learning from different sources to make conclusions, as well as branch out or elaborate on certain parts. 

PERSONAL & SOCIAL

Though I planned habits and systems at the start of the year for time management, I didn’t really end up using these.

Because of that, I struggled with time management, mostly putting too much time into one assignment and therefore not having enough time for other assignments. An example of this is the Big Life Journal, which I put a lot of work into some parts and though I was very happy with those parts, the other bits did not reach my standard. For the second semester, I think that I will try to use my systems, because I think that they will improve my time management, not so that I won’t put as much effort into work, but so that all my work will closer reach my standards.

Now I am going to reflect on some other projects that I haven’t really mentioned yet.

MEMOJI & USER GUIDE

One of our first projects for Maker was the laptop Memoji and user guide. Both of these were assignments that I was mostly happy with. For the Memoji, I think that I had a lot of stickers, but it wasn’t over-crowded and the stickers were unique to me. The only thing I would change is to make it even more visually appealing, probably by choosing a colour scheme or aesthetic to follow.

The user guide also represented me well and there was a good amount of text under every section. In this project, we also had to refer to ourselves in 3rd person, which was different than normal and kind of confusing, however towards the end, it became less challenging.

MAKING INTERESTING IMAGES

In November, we did a little week long Maker project about making interesting images, which consisted of learning photography skills, testing and reflecting on them and then finally compiling all the work into a small book/presentation. Unfortunately, I felt really rushed for time and I did not at all produce my best work. I think that my photographs could have been a lot better, because I really enjoy photography and in the past have created some images that I am super happy with.

Once again, I think that if I had used my time management systems, I wouldn’t have felt as rushed in this project, or at least not as rushed for other classes so that I could focus more on the photography.

GEEK OUT CHALLENGE

The week after this, we had another project in Maker, called the geek out challenge. Though this section was also only a week, it didn’t feel as rushed as the previous one and I was much happier with my work. For this assignment, we chose a topic that we, well, geek out about and wrote two blog posts about it (and then a reflection). I chose French, because I am really passionate about it and it isn’t very commonly liked. It was easy to write about and I didn’t ever struggle for ideas because it’s one of my interests, therefore there was more to say. It can also be hard to explain why you love something, but I was eventually able to identify some of the main reasons. At one point, I had an issue when the document didn’t save and all of the draft for my second post was deleted, however I managed to rewrite it and it was probably better than what I had originally anyways.

THE MIDDLE AGES

In late November/early December, we did a humanities project on the Middle Ages, where we created two presentations, one on the feudal system and Middle Ages and one more specifically on the Crusades. The first one, I was very proud and happy with and I think that it shows some of my best work. I thought that I had a good use of animations, as well as the little drawings done by myself and there was a good balance of text and visuals.

(Low quality due to being a GIF)

The second one was almost the exact opposite. I felt much more rushed making it and though I met all the criteria for an extending, I was not as happy with it. I did not make my own visuals, the slide layout was kind of boring and there were no animations (though, I did export it as a pdf).

In conclusion, through many success as well as FAILs, I have definitely grown a lot as a learner so far and will continue to grow in the next semester. Thank you for coming to my mPol, that’s all for now.

Kaia out ♥︎