After speaking to some of my former colleagues, they mentioned a desire to digitize one of their major projects. This project requires that all the senior science students work in mixed groups to complete an experiment that connects to a prescribed theme. The project is used as a kind of capstone for the seniors and many include it in their college applications. It is also an important display of how science is a strong subject for our magnet school, even if we don't have science in our name.
The name of the project is the Group 4 project. the experimental sciences are referred to as Group 4 by the IBO. They specifically delineate certain parts of the grading of the project, while leaving others completely up to the schools. The rubrics are set in stone. I feel like they are a bit limited, but it is what we have to use. This is also a project designed to take up about a quarter of the time we must report to IBO. It's called Practical work and this project has to take ten hours for each student. Across the entire group there should be 60 hours put forth into this, usually there are more.
There have been problems with this project in the past. Students have formerly been required to create a tri-board that displays their projects, but this has lead to storage issues and collaboration issues. By transitioning to a digital display, teachers can refer to them without looking for a cardboard and paper display as well as opening up a new audience for the students. Another problem we have is the students tend to be master procrastinators and do all of their work in the twelve hours before something is due. In order to prevent this we are hoping that a timestamped form should help the teachers and students see who is working and when it is happening. Finally we started incorporating video elements into the project because we saw some great results from students, showing how they did their experiment.
If you cannot see the screencast below click here for the link.
The name of the project is the Group 4 project. the experimental sciences are referred to as Group 4 by the IBO. They specifically delineate certain parts of the grading of the project, while leaving others completely up to the schools. The rubrics are set in stone. I feel like they are a bit limited, but it is what we have to use. This is also a project designed to take up about a quarter of the time we must report to IBO. It's called Practical work and this project has to take ten hours for each student. Across the entire group there should be 60 hours put forth into this, usually there are more.
There have been problems with this project in the past. Students have formerly been required to create a tri-board that displays their projects, but this has lead to storage issues and collaboration issues. By transitioning to a digital display, teachers can refer to them without looking for a cardboard and paper display as well as opening up a new audience for the students. Another problem we have is the students tend to be master procrastinators and do all of their work in the twelve hours before something is due. In order to prevent this we are hoping that a timestamped form should help the teachers and students see who is working and when it is happening. Finally we started incorporating video elements into the project because we saw some great results from students, showing how they did their experiment.
If you cannot see the screencast below click here for the link.