It’s that time of year again where I talk bout my growth so far and how I want to progress, thats right it’s mPOL season. And just like last year I have no clue how to start this and it’s due in like a day so here I go. First off the mPOL declaration that I have to read, 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. Anyways, the first area I want to reflect on is humanities. The growth I set for myself in humanities are (in summary) the following :

•working on the social aspect of class, not being shy around people i know are smarter than me

•asking more questions

•being less shy/more extroverted

I set my humanities grade as extending (🌈). I chose extending because sometimes I feel like I’m on the border of accomplished and extending and I just need a little push to make sure I get extending. I’ve grown in those areas quite a bit, I’ve been asking my friends more questions and even though I’m familiar with mostly everyone in grade 9 PLP, I still feel like I’ve warmed up to a few more people. The way I can grow more this year is by paying attention and really thinking about the topic while the teachers talking just in case I have a question I can’t ask later. I usually realize I wasn’t paying attention or didn’t catch something sort of crucial to the project and I feel too embarrassed to admit I wasn’t listening or forgot. That’s another way I can improve, asking the teacher something even if I forgot and my friends dont know either.

For Maker 9, these are what I set for myself for growth (again, in summary):

•put more effort into group projects

•try to be the “leader” in group projects, being responsible and making sure everyone is on task.

•actually put effort into Destination Imagination (isn’t happening this year I think)

I set my maker grade expectation as extending (🌈) as well. I chose extending because I wanted to push myself to work harder. With the projects we did this year I don’t think there were many big projects that we had to work in groups for, small things here and there but nothing super big. With a small project that happened recently, we made a rollercoaster and I know I put a lot of work into that. Another example of a group “effort” I put a lot of work into would be setting up for the winter exhibition, even though thats not a project I feel like I helped a good amount in my room. A way I can refine the goals I set for myself would be making sure I dont overdo it with the work I do. I want to make sure everyone does an equal amount of work so it’s not unfair for some people. 

Another class I set my expectation as extending (🌈) for is science, I chose extending because I knew I already really liked science and I feel like I’m really good in some science subjects. Here are the growth goals I set for myself:

•working on focusing, not always talking to my friends.

•work on ignoring friends, even if I know it might be a bit rude I need to remember to do my work.

•maybe sitting alone or somewhere else if I really need to.

Honestly, I haven’t grown the most in these areas, with some projects it’s easy to talk and do work like the most recent project we did with operation boxes where I could paint or draw while talking and not have any issues but sometimes if I needed to do work that required thinking then sometimes if someone started talking to me I felt as if I didn’t respond I would be being rude. To achieve my learning plan goal, I need to remind myself to tell my friends that I need to work or remind them to do their work if I noticed they arent done too.

For the extra minutes on my presentation here are some “jumpstart” questions provided to us:

•“of the work you completed this year what are you least proud of?” I’m probably least proud of would be the puppet show on reproduction for science, I never finished it and I kept thinking that “enough time has passed it’s too late to start making the video”, basically the ultimate form of procrastination “due tomorrow? Nah, do tomorrow” (I did that with science blog posts too). I wanna work on not doing that next term and handing in work even if it’s late.

• “Did all the work you completed this year meet your standards?” Definitely not, It’s hard to always have your work at your standard or higher without burning yourself out. Also different people have a different standard for their work, one persons standard might be higher and easier to burnout than someone else. I definitely want to work on getting my work up or past standard next term. Some ways I can remind myself to get the standard up would be some accountability for myself or a reward I can give myself if I do good work on something.
• “When did you feel dissatisfied during the working process of working on projects?” It differs from each project but an example I can give is the most recent humanities project. I liked the topic we were doing and I liked the teacher but there was no break in work it was constant homework, understandably it was a 2 week project and there needed to be homework to do it in time, it just felt like I was behind in it (even though it was my fault for not focusing and getting behind because of it).

I think what I’ve written is a little over 7 minutes so I’ll leave my mPOL here, thank you again for coming to my presentation.

Driving question 1: “How have i demonstrated growth as a Lerner so far this year?”
I think I’ve grown a lot since the school year started. I feel like i participate a lot more than i did before i joined PLP and im not as scared to public speak in front of my classmates. Ive definitely grown in the social aspect of my work and i hope to improve more specially in some groups i feel like im doing nothing in. More specifically in scimatics IVE gotten better at math at least a bit and I’ve learnt more math formulas (ex. Pythagorean theory) and in humanities i practiced reading poetry (mine or others) to the class in the most recent project we did. In maker, our first exhibition was to make something kind of like a reflection and we would show it off to our parents and our classmates parents.

Driving question 2: “How can i sharpen my learning plan to ensure i will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year”
i think if im more harsh on myself to get my work done or to do better i probably would but i would need a good motivation thats not just “if i dont get my work done then my parents will take my phone away” that just makes me more stressed about my work so it should somewhere in the middle of that, more like a reward if i get my work done. I definitely should try to do better (this part is repeated later in this post) and be more harsh but sometimes i just lack the motivation to be harsh on myself or do the best i can. In maker i could ask what i could do to help or create more ideas with teammates. In humanities i could try to have the work done on time more often or try to do my best even if i really dont like the subject. In scimatics i could try to do more of the math or science in groups instead of making the presentation look nice. I could try to do both math and decorations for that though.

-Of the work you completed so far this year, what are you least proud of? Why?
To be honest I’m not proud of a lot of work but if i had to choose I would say probably the tectonic chances board game we made or the ad for deep cove music at the start of the year. I didn’t like how they turned out in the end and i thought they would look different or better in some way. Specially with the board game, i feel like i could have put a lot more effort into the final design (like rules or game mechanics) because all i did was build the board and make some playing characters. With the deep cove music ad i just didnt like how it ended up looking. I didnt like the black/white borders on the side and the photos we took to use weren’t good either. I think it looked really complicated 

-Did all the work you completed this year meet your standards?
Honestly i don’t expect to get an A and i know i should “strive to get better grades” but honestly I’m okay with getting Bs. Going “above and beyond” is something i try to do but with the time i have to get to do it, its kinda difficult. And i know i can just clear some time in my schedule but i want some time to just hang out with friends or relax or just have a day to myself. 

-What skills did you use and what skills do you need to continue to develop?
Yea i need to improve on a lot of things, mostly just how to work more effectively in a group. At the moment i feel like i rely on my teammates to do most the work, for example my DI group. I feel like im not really apart of it and i bring no thoughts to the table. Tom, Luca, Judah and Makai do most/all the work and i feel like i just let them to get out of work easily even though i know that DI actually goes towards my maker 8 grade.

-When did you feel dissatisfied during the process of working on projects?
Mostly in scimatics. At the start of every project we always get like 3 workbooks of homework just of pure science or math and its always boring and it feels like ill never get them done on time. With humanities or maker im not usually dissatisfied 

-What did/do you find frustrating about PLP work?
The amount of homework that you have to do is a lot more than what I’m used to, most of my friends who aren’t in plp also agree that the homework that plp gives out is a lot. Im used to a light amount of homework that you get from not finishing the work in class but with plp no matter what you’ll get homework, even if you finish the stuff they give you in class. And it feels like if you dont do the homework they give you the day youre given it, you suddenly get so behind on your work and it gives you no time to relax or hang out with your friends.