Two day workshop, Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th of April, 2015, led by Gary Green.
The Personal Project is an independent research project that a student produces in Year 10. It is a creative endeavor of the student’s choosing that demonstrates the skills the student has learned in Approaches to Learning. Assessment of the Personal Project is based on a set of 8 specific criteria that are normalized to a scale of 1–7. The Personal Project is designed to demonstrate the student’s ability to organise, create, and complete a significant body of work.
(Source) Also see notes from Day 2.

 

The essential structure of every lesson and every personal project is:

• Know (knowledge)
• Understand (think about)
• Do (skills, processes)

The personal project is the one time in which students set their own course completely.

 

Here is the Personal Projects guide

Differentiation in lessons and this workshop:
Where do you place yourself?

What? Just give me the facts!	Why? Explain why we are doing it this way
How? How will it work?	Who cares! Just get on with it.

Criterion A of the Personal Project, Goal Formulation

Criterion A: Investigating
In the personal project, students should:
i. define a clear goal and global context for the project, based on personal interests
ii. identify prior learning and subject-specific knowledge relevant to the project
iii. demonstrate research skills.

Establish a challenging and inspirational goal:

• Why is it inspirational to you?
• Where is the learning challenge in terms of knowledge and skills.
• Ask kids: What is the learning here, WHY do you want to do it? This should be a mantra until the kids have written a CHALLENGING goal.
• iSMART goals: Inspirational, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results Driven, Timebound. If the kids achieve that, they are on the road to establishing a challenging and inspirational goal.
• Ask kids: What is the learning, what am I going to do? Who is it for? (audience/community). The sentence will have to be: To research XYZ to produce XYZ for XYZ.

All students have to set a goal.

From experience, it’s best to not to let students choose their supervisor, the supervisor chooses the student. In most Australian schools, supervisors will have two students to supervise.

Criterion A: Investigating

In the personal project, students should:
i. define a clear goal and global context for the project, based on personal interests
ii. identify prior learning and subject-specific knowledge relevant to the project
iii. demonstrate research skills.

• Identify prior learning and subject knowledge.
• What prior knowledge do I have?
• What do I need to know, do and understand from here? (If I don’t know much, does it matter?)
• Can I connect any subject knowledge here?

Tell the students what the supervisors are going to ask before the interview. There should be a structure for the interview for both.

Strand 3: Research = Demonstrate excellent research skills.

• Gary Green’s understanding of what it means: Finding (location and range) of resources, more than 5 references. Need to cite them in text and provide a bibliography (like IA and EE)
• Using why you chose the resource (evaluation of source) and how does it help your learning, product development, decisions made (transfer). What did you use? Why did you choose it? How did it help you?

For each area of research write the following:

• State the area of your research
• Explain what you learnt, citing and evaluating multiple sources
• Explain how you’ve applied your new learning to your project.
• The research should have a purpose, it should be clear how the research has been used.

An example of how to assess levels of research

Level 1 – 2: I have learned….
Level 3 – 4: I have learned XYZ and the information came from XYZ (in text citation)
Level 5 – 6: I have learned XYZ, it came from XYZ…. I used this source because of its credibility or reliability (currency, accuracy, bias, authority)
Level 7 – 8: I have learned, it come from, this is how and why I used it (need more)

Teach students how to evaluate the currency, accuracy, bias, authority of a website. (There are many videos on the internet, more resources will be shared with us by Gary)

It’s important that teachers and students have scaffolds and templates for all of these processes.

Criterion A: If they do a written report, Criterion A is the longest because that’s where the research sits. Criterion B is the shortest. (3500 words)

(Great rubric for the personal project here, using Turnitin: http://www.turnitin.com/en_int/resources/teaching-tools/465-rubrics/1789-20130618-ib-myp-v-project)

Global Contexts in the Personal Project

It’s mandated in every MYP unit and it’s important in the PP. They are assessed.

The main aim of GC is to develop ‘internationally minded’ learners, thinking of your community and wider world, understanding different cultures, global issues, your own beliefs and how you can make a difference.

 

 

Identities and relationships	Who am I? Who are we?Students will explore identity; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities and cultures; what it means to be human.
Orientation in space and time	What is the meaning of “when” and “where”?Students will explore personal histories; homes and journeys; turning points in humankind; discoveries; explorations and migrations of humankind; the relationships between, and the interconnectedness of, individuals and civilizations, from personal, local and global perspectives.
Personal and cultural expression	What is the nature and purpose of creative expression?Students will explore the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic.
Globalization and sustainability	How is everything connected?Students will explore the interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities; the relationship between local and global processes; how local experiences mediate the global; reflect on the opportunities and tensions provided by world interconnectedness; the impact of decision-making on humankind and the environment.
Fairness and development	What are the consequences of our common humanity?Students will explore rights and responsibilities; the relationship between communities; sharing finite resources with other people and with other living things; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.
Scientific and Technical Innovation	How do we understand the worlds in which we live?Students will explore the natural world and its laws; the interaction between people and the natural world; how humans use their understanding of scientific principles; the impact of scientific and technological advances on communities and environments; the impact of environments on human activity; how humans adapt environments to their needs.

GCs are in three of the four criteria (A, C and D)

• Crit A: How do they connect to the goal?
• Crit C: How is the global context refelcting the in the product outcome?
• Crit D: As a result of the project, what do I now know about the GC that I didn’t know before?

 

Have kids write: This connects to my goal because…….
and: My goal is XYZ, through an investigation of (insert Global Context), I will investigate XYZ and look at (insert strand).

Zoom, picture book, nice to illustrate different foci and different lenses.

Criterion B: Planning

Fairly simple, reflective.

Criterion B: Planning
In the personal project, students should:
i. develop criteria for the product/outcome
ii. plan and record the development process of the project
iii. demonstrate self-management skills.

Good resources here: http://myptoolbox.com/about/ (@alohalavina)

“Develop rigorous design criteria (What is rigorous??)”

Rigorous: Thorough, exhaustive, accurate, demanding.
Need to be able to look at the design and production of the product from multiple perspectives to show why the end product is rigorous. Must have a formative evaluations attached to the design criterion to be rigorous.

See Image Writing Criteria, Assessment Criteria B – Planning

Self management skills, use some of the AtL skills., possible assessment criteria for kids:

• You organised your time and task effectively
• You persevered and maintained your motivation
• You used the skill of reflection to make decisions and keep your project on track.

Criterion C: Taking Action

• Action is learning by doing and experiencing
• Service is a subset of action
• Service does not have to be a key focus of the Personal Project but it does for the CP (Community Project)

Criterion C: Taking action
In the personal project, students should:
i. create a product/outcome in response to the goal, global context and criteria
ii. demonstrate thinking skills
iii. demonstrate communication and social skills.

Process Journal is a vital component. Needs to be maintained as the students work on it. It does not have to be super neat, it can be messy. Can be done in any form. Students should attach the AtLs to their enries. There should be a reflective element.
The section “Completing the personal project” in the Personal Project Guide has guidance concerning the type of evidence that students should include in the process journal.”

Questions to reflect upon while maintaining the Process Journal:
What have I learnt, done, achieved. What challenges have I faced? How did I overcome them? What do I need to do next?

Elaboration (Criterion C)

• Selects from Atl categories of either thinking or comm and social skills.
• Identify skills cluster you will focus on from the lists provided.
• For each of the skill clusters, identify skills and attributes you think would fit with the PP.