Personal Projects

What are Personal Projects?

In simplest terms, Personal Projects are individual learning projects designed to allow students the opportunity for advanced study and exploration of topics that expand breadth of learning while developing skills that will allow them to plan, organize, and successfully complete a long-term project.

Our students have historically struggled in regular settings in part because they are asked to seamlessly integrate course content into an assessment (paper, presentation, or group project) that challenges their executive function deficits.  As a result of these deficits they do poorly on these assessments and are often wrongly assessed as not knowing the content or not able to produce work.  This clearly is not true, what they lack is the tools necessary to help them overcome the challenge.  For our students the Personal Projects process gives them a safe, well-structured place to work on and find success with skills in which they have deficits without it being tied to the standard curriculum.  Students practice and improve on these skills throughout their four years at Orion Academy and can then use the tools learned to integrate course content and project assessments in the upper level course work at Orion

As a learning and teaching tool, they are an integral part of the Orion Program. For our faculty and staff, Personal Projects can provide a keen insight into a student’s executive function skills.  That is, how well is the student able to plan, initiate, organize, pace, monitor, and correctly execute an assignment of this complexity.  Teachers, prepared with this insight, can then hone the Personal Projects process to help each individual student improve on the skills they need.

One of the key things to understand about Personal Projects is that it is about the process, not the product.  Students are learning to set goals, self-monitor progress, reflect on their learning, organize their ideas, and present those ideas to an audience.  A personal projects mentor helps guide the student toward success while focusing on specific areas of need within the process.

Types of Projects:

Exploration Project –

This type of project involves the exploration of new areas of information.  Often our students have very specific areas of interest and expertise. This type of project allows students to explore new subject matter and develop a wider range of interests.

Joe Student decides hears about nanotechnology from his new friend Sally.  He decides to do an exploration on the project so that he might know more about the topic and be able to talk more with sally about this. Joe does general research about nanotechnology and discovers there and discovers the definitions, the different areas in which nanotechnology are being used, recent advances in nanotechnology, and even some predictions of where nanotechnology might lead. Joe then organizes this information in to a power point style report and presents this new information to the community.

 

Breadth Project -.

This type of project will focus on expanding knowledge beyond an introductory level.  Students take a subject they know something about and expand it.  This project asks the student to begin to think about how the topic might be best communicated to an audience. This project always requires a 3-5 essay.

Peter Pupil has been fascinated with World War II since elementary school. In fact he knows the name of every type of war craft used by the U.S. military and most details about each vehicle down to the types of metal used to build them. Peter decides to do a project comparing the M1 Light tank to the Sherman M2 in which he is imaging trying to sell the pentagon on the idea of buying the new Sherman. Peter does deeper research into the pros and cons of each machine and writes a comparison contrast paper about the two tanks. He then creates a presentation trying to sell the audience the new Sherman.

Depth project -

This type of project is considered the most advanced and will require the student to take a specific topic, concept, or skill and produce work at an advanced level for that student’s ability.  Depth projects are thesis papers and will be from 7 -10 pages long. This project will always require a written product that includes appropriate references and bibliography.

After doing an Exploration project about nanotechnology Joe student discovers that there is much controversy surrounding nanotechnology and whether or not it should be regulated by the FDA.  Joe creates a thesis based on his early research during his last Exploration: Nanotechnology should be regulated by the FDA.  He then creates a detailed outline of his proposed paper and begins research to help prove his thesis.  The research is carefully organized and publication information carefully tracked. Joe then writes an eight-page paper on this thesis complete with proper citation and bibliography.  He then puts together a presentation that gives a summary of his main arguments and presents those ideas to the community.

 

Personal Growth -

This type of project allows for development of the person and the much needed work in social competency or new skill.  Although the project may be experiential, a presentation of some sort and a work product will be required.

Linda Learner is very excited that she will be going on next year’s winter abroad trip to Japan, but she is a little nervous about being there and not knowing the language at all. Linda decides that she will do a project in which she puts together a phrase book of common tourist phrases and questions. In addition, she decides that she will be able to order three meals at the Japanese McDonalds and be able to say some general polite statements like good morning and thank you in Japanese.  Linda gets some tourist phrase recordings, a translation book, and a video from the library that she will use to learn the phrases that she has determined to be most useful.  Linda then gives a presentation in which she teaches the audience how to say “good morning”, “thank you”, and “I’d like a quarter-pounder with cheese.” in Japanese. In addition her presentation explains all the work she did to learn the phrases she learned.

 

Performance -

These projects take place during the final session of the year and    are very different then any other project.  These performance based projects entail taking part in one of the performance projects offered. These may include: a play, an art exhibit, a science fair, book making course, news satire, or historic reenactment.  Student choose which group they would like to work with during this session and then perform at the last community meeting of the year.

Jenny Junior decides to take part in the “Nature Photography” Personal Projects.  During her six weeks she learns techniques for taking picture and goes out on             hikes and walks looking for interesting shots. She compiles a collection of photographs in to a portfolio and displays them during community meeting.