Bedford High School

Senior Culminating Project Handbook

undergoing some revision

2010-11

Table of Contents

PageTopic

3Purposes of the Senior Culminating Project

4Components of the Senior Culminating Project in Brief

6 Step-by-step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Schematic Guide

8Step-by-step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Fanciful Example

10Essential Questions and Our Five Themes (borrowed from Neil Postman)

18SCP Assessment Outline: Deadlines and grade component weighting

19Essential Questions: A Brief Primer

22Project Log: Expectations, Format, and Samples

25Evidence of Research

28Interdisciplinary Connections

30Criteria for Presentation

31Contract

32Suggested general format for a letter/email to a potential "outside expert"

33, 34Differentiation of Levels and of Major/Minor

Purposes of the Senior Culminating Project

The senior culminating project is designed to give student the chance to do a major piece of independent work, with some guidance and within some broad and flexible guidelines. We hope this is a chance for students to explore questions, domains, and activities that are of great personal interest to them — that matter to them. We also hope that students are able to strengthen existing connections, as they make new ones, between their "school lives" and their lives beyond school.

In working on their projects, students are encouraged to use this opportunity to synthesize a variety of the skills and concepts they have developed and explored throughout their academic careers. The hope is that these become truly "culminating" projects: statements about what students have learned over a long period of time.

By stressing community involvement , we expect to forge stronger ties between the school and the larger community — local, regional, and beyond. We think that people outside the school will learn some things about the high school as students work on these projects, and that we will learn some things about them.

We look forward to being surprised by these projects, and hope that students surprise themselves — perhaps by their willingness to look at an issue in a new way, or by placing themselves in a situation they find challenging, or by trying something they are not quite sure they can do.

We expect to learn about students' interests and the specific content of their projects. We also want to find out what students learn and experience more generally as they apply their "school knowledge" outside the walls of the school, and what they learn and experience as they to bring "outside" learning back into the academic setting.

We are certain that students will learn a great deal from each other, as they both work on and present their projects.

The senior culminating project is an experiment. Perhaps it is helpful to view it, like all teaching and learning, as a never-ending experiment. Every year so far, the course has been modified to at least some degree based on student feedback and our collective exeperiences with the course. Your projects, including all the research, reflection, work, learning, interpreting, and making you do along the way will be an essential part of this experiment.
Components of the Senior Culminating Project in brief:

Essential Question(s) and sub-essential questions: Consider the crafting of essential and sub-essential questions as the foundation for everything else. What is the big, important question to which you are trying to find some good answers? What are some of the other questions that you will need to try to answer along the way? As your explorations take you, perhaps, in a variety of different directions, having a compelling set of essential and sub-essential questions can help you to maintain your focus.

Project log: Like essential and sub-essential questions, the project log is a piece of the project that can help tie everything else together. The log is your means to create and keep a record of what you do on your project. It will become a resource upon which you will draw, for example, when writing reflection papers and putting together your “evidence of research.”

Reflection papers: You will be writing two of these: one at roughly the halfway point of the year, and one at the end of the year. Both have roughly the same functions: to give you a chance to reflect upon how the process of your project is going/has gone; to consider alternative strategies; to articulate what you believe you are learning/have learned.

Application of knowledge: To take information or concepts or models from one context and apply them in a new context is a sign of learning that goes beyond the mechanical and the rote. It is part of meaningful problem solving and thinking. In what way will you use knowledge creatively? How will you make sense of information to make it meaningful to yourself? How will you use your project as a way to make something new from ideas, concepts, facts, and skills that you have already learned in school?

Evidence of research, and research resources and methods: Doing research helps connect you to other people who have been thinking about some of the same questions and issues that you have been thinking about. Learning from others can help further your own journey of inquiry, especially if you continue to take responsibility for the lessons you draw from your sources. What resources have you identified, both academic (i.e., in traditional forms recognized by various disciplines, such as carefully researched and peer-reviewed books and articles), and “field” or less academic (such as interviews, observations), which you reasonably expect can help further your project? How do you judge the reliability and relevance of a source? Is a traditional “academic” style research paper (such as a history or English paper) the best way for you to convey what you have learned through research, or might you use another format more effectively?

Interdisciplinary connections: You will need to go beyond the boundaries of any single discipline in order to address your essential question well. Which disciplines have you identified as being central to your project? What specific elements ofthese disciplines do you plan on combining? What do you believe you will be able to learn and achieve by drawing upon multiple disciplines that you would not be able to achieve through a focus on a single discipline?

Community-based learning: If the experiences and lessons of your schooling seem irrelevant or unimportant beyond the world of the school, something is missing. It is important to get experience in making strong connections between these worlds. Have you identified any sites beyond school where you may be able, through observations, interviews, internships, apprenticeship, collaboration, or volunteer work, to further the goals of your project (that is, to help answer your essential questions)? What type or types of community-based learning do you think might be most helpful to you?

Tangible product: In school, learning is often measured by tests and papers. "Projects" and "activities" often offer a wider scope for exploration and for giving other people a glimpse inside your mind. Consider what you might do and make to help further your understandings and to share your insights with other people. What reasons can you offer for your choice or consideration of particular types of tangible products? How does making the tangible product — be it a story, a piece of music, a design for a building or a park — help you to better answer your essential question(s), and to communicate those answers to others?

Presentation: No single component of your project is likely convey to others the complete experience of your journey. In a fairly brief presentation (15 - 25 minutes), you will provide an overview of your project, touching on all the components. Your presentation will be an invitation to your audience to share your journey — in a sense, to relive it with you. What can you do to tell the personal story of your exploration — your motivations, memorable moments, notable challenges and how you met them, and so on — in ways that are compelling to an audience? What are the most significant insights you wish to share with others? Are there creative ways in which you can help to engage your audience with your project and the kinds of questions you have tried to answer — ways to help persuade your audience to care about your project as much as you do? Keep in mind, by the way, that if your “tangible product” involves some sort of performance or a creative piece such as a CD of recordings or a film, you may well not have time to share the entire work with your audience during the formal presentation. Rather, you may be sharing just a sampling of your work with your audience at this time. Further arrangements for sharing such extended works with an audience beyond the class and your SCP teacher can be discussed on an individual basis.

A word about flexibility and the individuality and uniqueness of each project and student:

While all students will, through their projects, address all the project components discussed here, it is quite possible that not all students will give the different components the same relative importance. For instance, for one student, the community learning component might turn out to be the most exciting and enlightening part of the whole project. For another student, research might become the key aspect of the project. For one student, making interdisciplinary connections might be a challenge that really draws them in and engages their best efforts; another student might concentrate his/her efforts on making a tangible product. Your SCP teacher will try to allow for some flexibility, in the spirit of the course, in this regard.
Step-by-Step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Schematic Guide

Note: While this guide attempts to give a chronological overview of the steps of the project, one must keep in mind that certain activities are impossible to pigeonhole in this way. Most significantly, note that the project log is an ongoing component, which students maintain for the majority of the year. Likewise, the timing of community-based learning and the making of interdisciplinary connections are impossible to specify by sequence or chronology. Some of the steps identified here correspond to specific due dates (see the Senior Culminating Project Portfolio Assessment Outline), while others do not and cannot.

The five themes: Seminars/Readings/Reflections

(Concurrent with I, Ia, and II — first quarter):

During the first quarter of the school year, we’ll be exploring, both individually through reading and reflection/writing and together through discussion, the five themes of the SCP course described a little further on in this handbook. We’ll be undertaking common readings, and you will be writing short reflection papers in which you look at how particular readings help to illuminate specific themes. At the same time, you will also be working (again, during the first quarter) on developing your project ideas and essential questions, and will be finding and making connections between your own developing project/questions and one or more of our five themes. You’ll describe these connections via very brief reflection papers.

I. The germ or kernel of a project idea: The student begins, perhaps, by identifying an area of inquiry ("I want to learn more about . . .") or an idea for something they want to do or make. It is possible that some students will start off on their journey with a very strong motivation to do an independent project of the general nature we are describing, but with no very specific project ideas.

Ia. The project log: The student begins keeping a project log at the very start of the school year. The nature of the log and its content will change as the year progresses. Early on, the log will include reflections about how the student's preliminary ideas and plans for the project are going. As the student begins to do research, the log will reflect this, incorporating specific notes on specific sources and ideas. Later in the year, the log will likely include thoughts about the tangible product and, eventually, about the presentation.

II. The development of a project idea using essential questions: The student develops an essential question(s) and sub-essential questions that grow out of/relate to the original project idea. In this process, the student begins to identify what s/he wishes to learn, and comes to understand better what really matters to him/her about the potential project.

III. The development of a plan for how to carry out the project: The student starts to determine how s/he can work to answer the essential question(s) in a meaningful way, with reference to the various project components: that is, thinking through what sorts of research, applications of knowledge, interdisciplinary work, community-based learning, and tangible product might be most helpful to undertake and to make.

IV. The beginning of research: The student identifies resources, both academic and non-academic (experiential or "field-based"), and carries out research to help answer essential and sub-essential questions.

IVa. Community-based learning: The student identifies people, places, and activities beyond school that will afford him/her opportunities to further his/her understanding, to better answer the essential question. Community-based learning may grow out of an internship or volunteer job. It will probably give the student a good chance to do some less academic and less formal research: making observations, conducting interviews, etc. Some students may have identified community-based learning opportunities very early on in the process of doing their projects, and some may continue such activity outside the school until quite late in the process.

IVb. Interdisciplinary connections: The student continues to refine his/her understanding of how two or more disciplines help to inform his/her thinking about the project and the essential question(s).

V. The first reflection paper: The student writes a paper drawing upon his/her project logs. In this paper, the student reviews the learning process so far, identifies current strengths and weaknesses of the project, and thinks through possible changes of strategy and emphasis. This is the time and place for students to compare where they thought they were going with where they actually are, and to figure out what to do next based on that reflection. The student uses the essential question(s) to help focus their thinking about the project.

VI. The evidence of research: The student presents the evidence of his/her research either in a traditional "research paper" format or in a format better suited to the particular project. In either case, an annotated bibliography is a vital part of the evidence of research. This presentation of evidence should reflect the fact that the student has done both more and less "formal" or "academic" research.

VII. The tangible product: The student makes something tangible as a crucial step in answering the essential question(s). Note that the tangible product can be a piece of writing, even though the term "tangible product" implies something a bit more physical and concrete. The general intent behind this phrase is that the student will make something that will have meaning beyond the school setting in ways that a traditional test or paper may not.

VIII. The presentation: The student presents, within a limited time (15 -25 minutes) his/her project to an audience of peers, mentors, and community members. Presentations will touch upon all phases of the project, with emphasis on those components that were most crucial to the student's specific project. The presentation should bring the audience on a journey: Here's what I wanted to learn (and why I wanted to learn it) and to do, here are the questions I was trying to answer, here's what I did, and here are the answers I came up with in the process. The student will be prepared to answer constructive questions from the audience.

IX. The second (final) reflection paper: The student writes a paper drawing upon everything up to this point. Again, s/he uses the essential question(s) to help focus these reflections. Important components to consider in relation to the essential question(s) are the evidence of research, the tangible product, community-based learning, interdisciplinary connections, and the presentation.

Step-by-Step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Fanciful Example

I. "I will make a quilt."

Ia. An early project log entry might include some reflection about the process of developing an essential question relating to making a quilt. A later project log entry might discuss some sources of information on quilting, or might recount a conversation with a local quilter who has shared some technical tips and some stories, too.

II. Elsewhere in the handbook, we have included some examples of possible essential questions relating to quilting, e.g. "Is quilting more of an art or more of a craft?" "Why do most of us have the impression that quilting is 'women’s work'?" and "What role does iconography play in quilts and quilt-making?" The development of such questions will be guided in part by the interests of the student.