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.
It’s been quite a year since far. I’ve have some highs and lows and I’m using this time to highlight both ends of the spectrum. We’ve already completed DI, winter exhibition and a ton of other projects. As well, this year we started something which we call our VMV.
The VMV was first introduced to us when we started planning for our Pre-POLs. When I first heard about this, I have to admit, I wasn’t too excited. I didn’t like the idea of Pre-POLs because I really didn’t like actual POLs. But now that I have it done, and I can use it to reflect back on, I’m really happy we created them, because I can understand it better then my old learning plan. I am able to write down goals that I want to have this year, and I personally feel as though it’s easier to look back on it and see what the specific goals were.
My main goals were being prepared for class and having agency. My main goal for being prepared for class was to work on my procrastination, which has been a goal of mine for a long time, and to be able to keep track of all my assignments, which also ties into agency. This year the classes are a lot different so having them all at the same time has made it easier and more difficult for me. I like having them at the same time because it feels more spread out and not as rushed, but the more difficult part for me it’s being able to keep up with all of the workload from all my classes. To be able to keep track of all my work, and all of my classes I’ve recently downloaded a new app called my homework that tracks of all my classes and helps me keep track of all of my homework as well.
One of my favourite projects this year, was our World War II magazines. I really love this project because it was very structured and I knew exactly what I had to create. I had to do research and then use that research to turn it into an essay/multi paragraph response. The most confusing part of this project was the MLA formatting, but in the end, I got the hang of it and actually quite enjoyed it. I’ve noticed that for myself, I really enjoy projects that have a lot of structure to them and where I know exactly what I have to do. I respond well to having a lot of instructions and be given specific tasks so that I understand what is expected of me and what exactly I have to do. I think it’s important that I’ve learned what my learning style is because I can then apply that to myself so that I can tell myself what is expected of me and what I have to do. I know this is a lot last year, and the magazine project really reinforced that idea in me.
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Another one of my favourite projects, was the ology of apology. This project was less structured, because there was a lot of creative freedom in it. Normally that worries me a bit because I I tend to lose interest sometimes when the project is very open, but this project still had a lot of structure towards it because we needed to choose an exact subject and event and then use that to then creatively express ourselves in a memorial. Another thing I liked about this project, was that it started out individual with the research, so that I understood the project, and then we were put into groups so that we could combine our ideas.
The biggest challenge for me this year was DI. You might not know what my experience was like last year, but it was definitely difficult and give me a bad mindset about it. This year my goal for DI was to have fun, and to be able to effectively communicate and collaborate with my group. The reason I wanted to be able to have fun was because this is my last year doing DI, and I won’t ever have an experience like this in school again so I might as well enjoy myself while I’m doing it. I’m really grateful for the group I got this year because they also wanted to have fun in DI and didn’t care about embarrassing themselves. We actually wrote all of this into our contracts. Everyone in my group was given a role where they had to effectively collaborate with others so that our DI solution was realistic. I’m really glad that this year I was given the role that I wanted in the section that I wanted because it gave me a good memory of DI to end on.
How can I push myself out of my comfort zone to take more risks and achieve more depth in my learning?
One of the main ways I can push myself out of my comfort zone is by choosing to become a leader in a group, and to put myself in more public roles, like presenting to the class more. I’ve noticed in group projects, that I tend to end up becoming the group leader in the end, because in the end I realize that my group could use leading, and I want to learn how to make myself a leader at the start because I like actually having a leadership role. If I chose to become a leader earlier on in projects, I think that could Improve my groups learning as well as my learning. Obviously not every group needs me to be the leader, but I want for myself to start taking more initiative and being more independent and knowing what I need to do with my work, so that I don’t rely on someone else so even if I’m not a leader for someone else or a group I want to become more of a leader in myself with taking charge of my own learning so that I can put it into my own learning style to understand it more.
How have I shown growth as a learner so far this year?
I think I’ve shown a lot of growth this year and from even the start of grade 8. When I first came into PLP, my main goal was to work on my public speaking and my confidence. And from then, I’ve shown a lot of growth. My DI is a good example of my public speaking, because I gave myself a larger role to challenge myself. I also think my confidence has grown greatly. I am able to share my work now, and I don’t think my teachers would tell me to talk more. This year though I think I’ve shown growth as well. I’ve been really proud of my last couple projects and how much effort I’ve put into them. I’ve put in the work, extended myself, and collaborated well with others.
Thanks for reading/listening to my MPOL 2025!
