KCP’s Annual Senior Projects are underway. This project marks the end of our seniors’ high school academic responsibilities while providing a perfect bookend to the journey that began four years ago. This final presentation also provides a powerful window for 9th, 10th, and 11th graders into what might be possible during their senior projects in the future.
A quick browse through roughly 46 Senior Blogs illustrates the breadth and depth of the experiences created by our upcoming graduating class over the past several weeks. Some of our senior projects focus on marketing and business, while others capitalized on the opportunity to engage in the areas in which they would like to major in University. While other students have identified improvement opportunities to the infrastructures in Barranquilla. Each senior proposed a topic in February and went through a review process, and now work closely with their Senior English teacher and their 12th-grade Science teachers in their desired field of interest.
This year’s seniors are going to write a paper of 2,000-2,500 words that tell a story of their investigation of a question or problem they are curious in researching. They will collect information from books and electronic sources that will help them focus their topic, and they will collect data through interviews, questionnaires or content analysis that will be displayed and analyzed as evidence.
Another aspect of the Senior Project is teaching students how to evaluate the quality of online information. An essential part of online research is the ability to evaluate information critically. This includes the ability to assess its level of accuracy, reliability, and bias. Through this process, we are hoping our Seniors see the value of healthy skepticism toward information they encounter in both online and offline contexts. Mr. Taylor Dopuch’s class has been a great place to reinforce multiple perspectives and new ways of thinking about content.
The culminating event of the Senior Project will be students presenting their research in a Ted-Style talk to their peers, teachers, and parents. In a nutshell, TED presenters weave together stories and information skillfully to engage their audiences. We want our Seniors to feel confident articulating their thoughts and delivering powerful and poignant presentations. Many of our students feel intimidated by the prospect of presenting a TED-style talk and assume they cannot add anything of value to the field they are researching. We want our students to know their ideas are worthwhile and their voices should be heard. We passionately believe that when educators give students an authentic audience, students will do their best work. Also, we think it’s essential for educators to create time, space, and opportunities for students to cultivate and share their ideas with their community. This year’s presentations will be on Monday, May 20th. More information to come on location and time.
Article by KCP’s Blended Learning Coach, Pamela Zipper.