| For the past month, our students have each developed two potential Senior Capstone projects. The idea was this: if one project were to "tank," they could go to the other one. Needless to say, students didn't love this but did it because we insisted they do so. And surprise, surprise: some of them actually picked their "second" project--the project they didn't think they would set out to do--and decided to do that one! The key document that they used to develop each of these projects was what we called the "Essential and Research Question Template." We're providing a blank copy of that on the left. Students had to complete one of these documents for each of their proposed projects. These went through several drafts, sometimes as many as four-five versions. The ideas was to get this right now and to make certain that the essential question (the "EQ") lined up with the primary research question (the "PRQ") and the proposed project description itself (the "what are you actually going to produce when this is all over"). When deciding on their final projects, students had to write a "statement of project choice." We thought you might be interested in reading excerpts from some of these. Alie: "While I really love both of my project ideas, I have a deeper personal connection with the children’s book project. It combines two things that I’ve always loved - art and science." Chengfeng: "…the project about immigrants seemed to click for me; when coming up with questions, it was extremely natural to plot further points of research. I’m also very taken by the idea (which I know will be extremely challenging) of making a documentary that will be able to chart the course of several Chinese immigrant children (or adults who have undergone the experience of acculturation as a child). I think this project will speak to many immigrant children currently at BLS. And finally, I believe that following this project about Chinese immigrants will reveal a lot about myself to myself; while this is certainly not the goal of Capstone in general - to share knowledge or experience and affect others’ lives - I think it is key that I learn more about myself in the process of sharing." Elisabeth: "I have chosen this project because I am genuinely interested in this topic. It has great significance for me because I have always loved Greek mythology, in part because I loved the fantastical stories and also because I felt a strong connection to my Greek heritage and its legacy." Gus: "I’m relatively new to the study of urban legends, or at least the intensive study, so everything I uncover will be fresh and exciting, whereas with comedy, it will just be more of the same. I look forward to the challenge and the adventure of starting my own legend. With comedy, I will just be regurgitating the jokes and styles of other people, not really creating my own thing, and I came into Capstone with the intention of making something new, something that had never been done before. And an original story, created by me fulfills that better than a stand up set ever could. It all boils down to the fact that I think the study of urban legends will keep my focus and attention longer, and that is key when it will be my project for the next half a year." Meggie: "I want to continue working on this project because I believe that I can impact more lives with this project. This project will give students the skills and knowledge to begin dismantling the system of race in America by first creating discussions that address the issues at hand and creating the space for dialogues that can lead to sustainable solutions." Zannat: "I really wanted to make a big and direct impact on the BLS and Boston community, and I thought that Meatless Mondays would be perfect for that. The community garden website project would be available to people who sought it out, but I wanted my project to kind of smack people in the face. I’m more passionate about going meatless than community gardens, so I feel like I would do a lot more good work and put more effort into the meatless monday campaign. I’m really excited to get started on this project and start talking to government officials and get my idea started!" We thought you would want to see the final list of "EQs" and "PRQs" that our students have selected for their final Senior Capstone projects. See the scribd document on the left (below the EQ/PRQ template). Finally, we have asked our students to each conduct a "practice" (or what we call a "beta") interview, in order to refine their skills as interviewers for the many interviews ahead of them during their various Capstone projects. In the photos below, you will see them practicing with one another before identifying their "beta interview" subjects. |
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Thanks Jon Calos at the Emma Willard School for passing the Capstone baton to Boston Latin School for the month of October. Boston Latin School is the nation's oldest public school. Founded in 1635, we're fond of saying that Harvard was created one year later (true) to accept our graduates (also true). We're an exam school not unlike Bronx Science or Stuyvesant High School in New York City and have a 7-12th grade population of more than 2400 students. Our Senior Capstone program is in its second year. It was jointly created by us--Judi Freeman, a history teacher at the school, and Jeff Mikalaitis, an English teacher at the school. We devoted a year, thanks to some very generous release time, incubating our program, studying regional programs and cherrypicking their best features. We also benefited tremendously by a week spent at the National Capstone Consortium at the Thacher School in Ojai, California in June 2014 (as well as a return visit in June 2015). Our inaugural year exceeded all of our expectations. We had 24 highly motivated students developing an array of projects that they conceived and executed. All completed a series of key steps and milestones along the way, culminating in the submission of a final project and deliverables in March 2015 and a two-day Senior Capstone symposium, modeled on a series of TEDx talks, open to our community in April 2015. More than 5,000 students, faculty, and community members attended and our Senior Capstone students became overnight celebrities at our school. It was nothing short of thrilling. For a snapshot of what our Senior Capstone inaugural class accomplished in 2014-2015, see the individual slides below: Our second year of Senior Capstone began in early September 2015, though students were working on their projects and their YouTube presentations all summer. In our blog entries for this month, we will take you inside the work of our students. They are revising and reworking recently drafted Essential Questions and Primary and Secondary Research Questions for two potential projects, moving toward selecting one of the two to pursue and then submitting a full-blown Research Proposal in these next weeks. They are honing their interviewing and presentation skills. And they are in the thick of intensive research, annotating bibliographic entries, setting up site visits, and developing budgets.
Stay tuned for our next few blog entries as we take you through their work. |
AuthorA group of capstone schools from across the United States Archives
January 2016
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