Personal Project Proposals

On Friday my Grade 9 students submitted their Personal Project proposals. Most have been approved already, with a few needing a couple of tweaks. This week I will be busy matching supervisors, (with input from the learning support team, ESL teachers, MYP Coordinator and school psychologist, as well as teachers signing up to topics they are interested in).

I had never done a formal proposal form before - it is something I have inherited from our wonderful MYP Coordinator - and I have no idea why this was something I did not include previously.

I've updated our proposal form, to make it quite challenging. Some of the changes and reasons are:

• Students must choose a global context and exploration - this helps them choose the best global context for their project, instead of just picking the one that 'sounds right'
• Students must show at least three facts about the topic - this means they have already read around the topic, have started off their research, and have shown why their topic is worthwhile exploring.
• Students must show a screenshot from NoodleTools - this means they aren't using less reliable, free, online sources. It also means they have made a project on NoodleTools, where they can add their sources as they go, instead of scrambling to create their bibliographies when they write their reports.
• Students reflect on their personal interest - again, this shows they have committed to the topic, but also it will help them write criterion A i, in their report.
• Students reflect on MYP experience which will help them with their topic - This will help them  write Criterion Aii, and it lays the ground work that the approaches to learning developed in the MYP are central to the success of the personal project, and that this is the culminating work for the MYP
• Students pick a topic, and suggest three possible products/outcomes. This moves their focus away from 'making a thing' and moves it back to being focussed on learning. A student might say their topic is Afghani cooking, then their product/outcome could be a cookery book, cookery lessons or cookery tutorials.
• I also create an example, so they could clearly see what is expected of them.

Although I have a couple of students who have not been approved yet, this is usually for very small details, like copy-pasting citations from another source, instead of a screenshot from NoodleTools. Overall, I am impressed with their proposals. I have not taught out current grade 9s, so it has also been nice to get to know them through this.

Lastly - in a couple of days they will find out who their supervisor is. They will set up a pre-summer meeting, to decide on steps to take over the summer....BUT when they send the email, they will send a copy of the proposal. This means supervisor will already have a good understanding of the project! I will get students to add some 'to do' items on ManageBac, agree or expectations with supervisor , and they will discuss any approaches to learning that the student feels they will need support with, (for example, time-management issues, like procrastination).

As always, feel free to use my resources, (but give my credit).

• Here is the proposal template
• Here is the proposal example
• Here is our new Personal Project Website.