Week 19: Draft of Report due Friday

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The first draft of your report is due on Friday to your supervisor.

Please plan a meeting in person :

 

Report Structure:

Title Page ( Student name, school name, year, title of project and length (word count if written)

Introduction including  (Context, a clear goal,  how you intend to achieve your goal and an AoI focus)

Selection of Sources

Application of Information

Achieving the goal

Reflection on Learning

______________

Appendices to report

__________________________________________________

 

Coming up next week and due before Friday of week 20

 

Excerpt of Process Journal 

10 to 20 of your best entries from your process journal

You should select entries showing well developed:

organisation skills, collaboration with supervisor, information literacy, thinking and reflection

(If you have less than 20 entries all together it may be good to only present your best 10 out of 20)

 

 

Week 18: Criteria

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Attached is a summary of the PP Criteria. (See PPP Guide for Detailed version)

PPP Criteria (summary)

 

Remember:

A: Product completed and “submittable” to supervisor on Friday of week 19.

B: First Draft of PPP Report due to supervisor on Friday of week 20.

C: PPP Product and PPP final Report due to PPP coordinator (Mr. Morin) on February 6 (Week 22).

D: PPP exhibition on March 7 (Week 24)

 

Week 18: Updates

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Week 18: Meet your supervisor this week to: 

1. Present update on “almost completed” product

2. Present up to date process journal ( not on the computer screen anymore)

3. Show to supervisor “applied information” during creation

4. Get a “guestimated” grade for Criterion A again, and a first impression of D

5. Present plan of action to complete product and report (see due dates below)

Remember: 

A: Product completed and “submittable” to supervisor on Friday of week 19.

B: First Draft of PPP Report due to supervisor on Friday of week 20.

C: PPP Product and PPP final Report due to PPP coordinator (Mr. Morin) on February 6 (Week 22).

D: PPP exhibition on March 7 (Week 24)  

 

 

 

 

 

Creating your product

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WEEK 17: Creating YOUR PRODUCT

Remember to maintain a detailed process journal during creation.

 Your product is DUE to be completed soon after our return in January. This means that your product needs to be SUBMIT-ABLE by Wednesday of week 19.  You should be able to self-assess Criteria A-D DURING THE HOLIDAY. You are still allowed to make improvements on these sections. You should also be able to assess Criterion E by your return in January.

 We hope you have a clear plan of action before we meet again in January.
SAFE & HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 Mr Morin

Creative Environments in Creating Products

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As a musician, I really believe that creativity flows best when I’m rested and relaxed. When I’m comfy in pajamas, with some hot chocolate, I find my creative juices start flowing and I get into “the zone.” For me, I get a lot of great work done during the winter holiday – I come back rested, but well prepared for what lies ahead at school.

In the same way, you have a lot of work that needs to be done on your PPP directly after the holidays.

January 15: Submit first draft of your report and process journal to your supervisor
January 30: Submit final draft of your report and process journal to your supervisor
February 6: Collection of all work, whether finished or not
March 7: PPP Exhibition

However, Winter Holiday is going to offer you a great opportunity to do a lot of high quality, relaxing work on your PPP. It’s a time when exams are done, your other work has been submitted, and now you can really focus on your product.

Your product needs to be finished by the time you return from Winter Holiday because January will be spent writing your final report.

So stay in your pajamas… put your process journal beside you… grab a holiday treat… and enjoy working on your product.

A Variety of Sources

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Your reference list needs a variety of sources. What does the word variety mean?
Dictionary.com says, “a number of different types of things, especially ones in the same general category.” So a variety of sources means a number of different sources in the same reference list.

What does a “variety” of sources look like?

Books – See the school library. Go to www.amazon.cn. Take your passport to the Nanjing Public Library at Daxingong and get a library card.

Journal Articles – You can find these using the new EBSCOhost researching tool. Also, some peer-reviewed, professional journals are now publishing online, for free!

Newspapers – Check to which papers our library subscribes. Also check online – most of the major newspapers also have online versions.

Magazines – Check with Mr. Lockwood and Mrs. Rinker to see which magazines the school subscribes. You can also purchase magazines from the iTunes store through In-App purchasing.

Videos – These can be online (like YouTube) or they can be DVDs.

Audio Files – These can be music files or a CD. Last year a student studied how music soothes insomniacs and used audio files in her reference list.

Encyclopedias – Sometimes you need to start off by introducing your topic, and what better way to find a short, concise definition than through our local encyclopedias. Check with Mrs. Rinker.

Personal Communications – According to the APA manual, you can include a personal communication in your reference list if you provide a word-for-word transcription; otherwise, put your communications into your appendices.

Technical Reports – Doing a report on chemical properties? Technical reports are good sources of information.

Informally Published Works – IBO guidelines and manuals count as informally published works. If you have defined your AOI or have quoted about your AOI, you also need to cite the IBO.

Conference Papers / Lecture Notes – Many big conferences will post the speeches given. Some universities (e.g. Stanford) publish their lecture notes for free.

Government Reports, Acts & Laws – Some countries publish their reports, acts, and laws online, for free. I know that Canada, America, and China all do this. If you want to see how your topic is considered by specific countries, then check online.

Week 15: Dear supervisors(students should read)

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Dear supervisors,
Thank you for your report about your student’s progress in the PPP.  I have already started to meet with students who are not on the path of success.
Remember that it is not your fault if you see that your student is not responding well to this type of challenge. It is the student’s responsibility to succeed in this project (not yours).
For example:
Students should be asking for meetings with you
It is not your job to unilaterarly schedule meetings with your student
You can suggest to your student that a meeting could be helpful
Ultimately it is their responsibility to chase you for help (not the opposite)
If you feel your student lack engagement and are not on a successful path as described in Week 15  PPP Blog post below please report to the student’s parents and to Ms Tyoschin or Mr Morin
The PPP due date is on February 6. Please do not wait for Semester 1 report to communicate issues and worries to parents (There is only 2 weeks between the Report and the PPP due date).
Thanks again for your valuable support!

Week 15: Successful Students

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At this point successful students:

– are either creating their product or have a clear plan about when and how creation will take place
– have a detailed Process Journal including all their accomplished work so far (Process Journal)
– have a variety of analyzed and anotated  sources related to their project (Select sources)
– have a number of ideas, influence, techniques which will impact the creation of their product or themselves as a person (Apply Information)
– have their AoI and goal in mind and have it clearly showing in their Process Journal and their entire project

Creation: Making your product

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During the Creation phase students are required to maintain their Process Journal with detailed and reflective entries.  It is also a time to pull out your specifications and try to respect them. The creation of your product is helping you achieve your goal.

D: Apply Information could be improve or define during Creation if it is not already completed.  Here are some paragraph starters to help you:

“These two sources contain contradicting information. I will need to determine why… First I will… ”
“Since I have learned that… (some information), this affects my project because … ”
“Based on my research, the following factors are most central in creating my product because… ”
“One way for me to test this (information) is to … (outline steps).”
“Before doing my research, I hadn’t realised that … (some information). This means that I will … ” (identify and explain some action you will take).

 Remember that you need to apply information identified from your specific sources or from other sources that you will add to your reference list. 

 

PP Initiative from around the world

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Dear International School Friends,

My name is Aseye Banini, and for the past few months I have been working on a blog for my MYP Personal Project. My blog is called “Crash Course Guide to being a Third Culture Kid”. The topic of my blog is how to be a third culture kid, or in other words an expat kid living overseas. My blog has lots of advice and stories about living abroad.

I have experience on this topic because I have lived in three different countries for fifteen years before I came to live in Ghana, the country I come from. These “foreign” countries are Australia (5years) where I was born, USA (2years) and Indonesia (8years). The blog is also good for moving around, settling down, and just figuring out what a Third Culture Kid is. I want to share this with ASA school because the things I write about might be things your students are going through. The link for the blog is www.tckness.jux.com, and if you have any comments about my blog email me at abanini@lincoln.edu.gh.  You can also sign up, to be a follower and also share your experience, at jux www.jux.com.

Sincerly

Aseye Banini,

Grade 10, Lincoln Community School

Formative Assessment

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This week you need to see your supervisor and ask for an estimate of cumulated points.  It is also the week when the Creation of your product might begin.

Your supervisor will provide feedback about your progress and will communicate a “guestimate” of your achievement for Criteria A, B, C, and maybe some of D.

You have just begun your Criterion D, so it may still be quite low.  An estimate of 7 points or less out of the possible 16 will be considered like an “at risk of failing” situation.

This is what you should have completed already:

– Criterion A: PPP process journal – approximately 10 pages of real reflection about the process and your struggles and how they were resolved

– Criterion B: introduction – complete, including product, AoI, goal, context, SPECIFICATIONS FOR PRODUCT, timeline
– Criterion C: reference list – annotated
– Criterion D: beginning stages (see sentence starters from last blog post

See Mr. Morin or the other mentors for a second look at your progress.

Mentors:

Ms Keus, Ms Tyoschin, Mr Messom, Mr Klesch, Mr Morin

 

Apply Information

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As you work on your project, you need to demonstrate that you are applying your what you have learned in your research.

As you continue to collect information and reach a wide variety of sources, take note in your process journal:

-Of Influence from sources that will impact the way you achieve your goal and create your product.

-Ideas or techniques that you will use during your process.

 

Here is the descriptor of the highest band level:

The student demonstrates well-developed transfer and application of information to make decisions, create solutions and develop understandings in connection with the
projectʼs goal.

Here are some paragraph starters that might get you thinking…

“These two sources contain contradicting information. I will need to determine why… First I will… ”
“Since I have learned that… (some information), this affects my project because … ”
“Based on my research, the following factors are most central in creating my product because… ”
“One way for me to test this (information) is to … (outline steps).”
“Before doing my research, I hadn’t realised that … (some information). This means that I will … ” (identify and explain some action you will take).

Mr Morin and Mrs. Tyoschina