8.+Senior+Project


 * Senior Project Outline **


 * What**: The senior project will be a project in which each student explores a particular idea in-depth. It is a genuine opportunity for seniors to merge their various interests, passions, and curiosities with their academic lives at school. Similarly, the project is a vehicle for seniors to demonstrate autonomy, complexity, and awareness in their final months before graduation.


 * The Four Principles which form the basis of the senior project:**

1. The Essential Question: Because a successful and meaningful Senior Project necessarily involves genuine inquiry around a topic of the student's choosing, all seniors focus their work around a complex, interesting, and sustainable essential question.

2. Interdisciplinary Approach: Because of the multi-faceted nature of each Senior Project, seniors incorporate a variety of modes of thinking into the planning, implementation, and exhibiting of their projects.

3. A Research Component: No Senior Project can be successful without a substantial element of new learning. This learning takes place in multiple ways, one of which must be research. Research is both experiential (interviews, surveys, etc.) and text-based (library, Internet, etc.), although the degree to which each form is emphasized varies from student to student.

4. Academic Rigor: Each Senior Project is conceived in a way that challenges the student to think deeply and critically beyond what he/she already knows. The topic is big enough that when examining it the student must consider multiple perspectives but not so big that the research leads only to superficial understanding.


 * The Proposal**

The first formal element of the Senior Project is your Project Proposal. You must submit a formal proposal that addresses your ideas and intentions with specific attention to the guidelines listed below. The audience for your proposal will be a committee made up of teachers. This committee will review all proposals for thoroughness and feasibility. Any proposals that are not accepted will be sent back for revision and/or re-conceptualization.

While there will certainly be opportunities to make modifications and adjustments in your project as you become immersed in it, your task in this proposal is to address a well-thought out plan for your project parameters. Your proposal must explain the ways in which your project will fulfill the requirements for the Senior Project: 1. Generate an essential question. 2. Explore this question by engaging in formal academic research. 3. Apply skills and knowledge from several disciplines that will lead to deep and critical inquiry. 4. Create a distinct product and exhibition to be presented to a panel. 5. Additionally, you must explain your motivation and rationale for the thinking behind your proposed project. Specifically, your proposal should explain your answers to the following questions:
 * What is your rationale for and interest in choosing your general area of investigation and specific essential question? Why is this a good idea for you?
 * How do you know this project is academically rigorous and feasible? Explain the process by which you have established plausibility for this project. What research have you done so far?
 * How does this project build on your existing skills and interests yet also require you to explore new ideas and experiences? How will this project extend your mind and your abilities?
 * What resources and sources (texts, organizations, people, etc.) have you identified as a foundation for your project? Be specific.


 * Senior Project Process Guidelines and Assessment**

While the process by which you complete your Senior Project will be individualized, you are accountable for having a thoughtful, clear, organized, and productive method of going about your work. Your process will be monitored by periodic check-ins and you are responsible for documenting the steps that you take throughout the project. The guidelines and assessment for this aspect of your project are spelled out below.

//Organizational Guidelines//:

It is important that you are organized throughout the Senior Project. Although a variety of individual organizational styles are expected, the following are minimum expectations: You are encouraged to use an online sharing platform such as GoogleDocs and/or organizational binder or a file box for the project. This will help you stay well organized and will allow you to create an index and/or a table of contents so that your work may be readily found and easily accessed and assessed. Other acceptable forms of organization can be worked out with your teacher in your early meetings.
 * You keep your work in chronological order.
 * You save all formal letters, records, and feedback.
 * You keep a blog of your progress and your process.
 * Your work is accessible to you and to your advisor.
 * You document your sources with the notes you take.

//Specifically, you will need to keep://

A. Documentation
 * 1) Proposal and letter of intent
 * 2) Approval of proposal
 * 3) Outline of what you want to accomplish
 * 4) Conference records from teacher
 * 5) Conference Day checklists
 * 6) Blogging journal of your progress and process with the date and what you did
 * 7) Any feedback from your teacher

B. Evidence of research
 * 1) Annotated bibliographical and/or biographical information
 * 2) Notes on your reading, your interviews, your videos, etc.
 * 3) Physical evidence (photos, sketches, podcasts, videos, etc.)
 * 4) Other (surveys and analysis of surveys, logs, etc.)

C. Reflection
 * 1) Discussion of credibility of your sources and usefulness of your sources
 * 2) Long and short term goals
 * 3) Successes, frustrations, etc.

//Process Blog Guidelines://

You are required to maintain a blog of your process and progress in the Senior Project. This blog will serve as evidence of your process, and it will be a catalogue of the growth of your ideas. You will use this blog both for the project itself and in your eventual reflection. In essence, this is the record of the work you have done and your reflection on the progress of that work. While there are a variety of ways to complete your blog successfully, the following are the minimum requirements:
 * You must do a minimum of one blog entry per week. (Of course, more frequent entries are encouraged, but one a week is the minimum.)
 * You must describe the work you have done during that week.
 * You must comment upon the accomplishments, struggles, and breakthroughs (both process and idea-based) in your week.
 * You may also want to use this blog to set short and long term goals for the project. In addition to using the contents of this log for your own purposes, it will be evaluated for completeness, thoughtfulness, and timeliness (as part of your Senior Project process assessment).

//Progress Checks/Conferences://

You will have check-ins with the teacher to assess the progress and depth of your project. The purpose of the conferences will be to: 1. Check on organization and documentation 2. Check on blog completion 3. Discuss research - open Q&A a. Examine notes and bibliography b. Discuss progress based on blog c. Discuss further questions to be raised 4. Identify connection to the essential question

At each of these conferences, your teacher will complete a conference check-in list. These lists will all be considered at the end of your project when your process as a whole is assessed.

//Conference Days://

As you know, you are responsible for organizing your time and work for the Senior Project. However, if you fall behind on your project, established `conference days' exist to provide you with a formal warning. The Conference Days will be your formal check-ins with your teacher. If you are behind on the Conference Days, the following will occur:
 * Your teacher will inform you of this verbally and in writing.
 * You will need to make a formal schedule with your teacher to get back on track.
 * A letter will be sent home to your parents/guardians informing them of your lapse and will include the plan/schedule that you developed with your advisor.
 * If, by the next conference, you still remain behind, you will be in jeopardy of not passing (i.e. not graduating) and a meeting will be scheduled with you and your parents/guardians.


 * Senior Project Product**

Each of your Senior Projects will result in a "product" of some sort. These products are a crucial manifestation of your research, investigation, thinking, and work. The products can be anything from a paper, to a performance, to a painting, to a public policy creation. The product of each Senior Project will be assessed on a rubric you will be given. The rubric will be individualized to include key aspects you’re your project.


 * Senior Project Exhibition**

Each Senior will present a 30 to 45-minute presentation of their Senior Project to a panel of teachers. This panel is responsible for assessing the exhibition itself (not the other components of the project). The panel must come to consensus about whether the exhibition is Just Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding the expectations. There will be a 15-minute question and answer component to the exhibition, and students are expected to be able to answer difficult questions on demand that are related to the exhibition. An inability to answer questions sufficiently will reflect on the assessment of the exhibition as a whole.

Senior Projects and their accompanying documentation are due on the day of the exhibition.