I’m the Personal Projects Coordinator at my school, so I consider all students to be ‘my students.’ Sure, I have my own individual kids to supervise. However, I still act like a mother hen and look after everybody as best I can (including my supervising teachers.) Thus, whenever you read about “my kids” or “my students,” know that I’m typically talking about an entire cohort.
Visual Deadlines
Here’s a poster I like to show our students. It gets changed from year to year as the deadlines shift (like the years COVID turned our years upside-down!). I like the imagery of it because many students (I hate to admit this) actively hate doing the PP. They feel like it’s a long slog. I like to give them the imagery that it’s a long trek, true, but there’s an endpoint at which you feel proud of yourself, and then it’s all downhill from there.
ManageBac - Check Your Flag!
We’ve fully moved to ManageBac, and the PP along with it. I’ve been busy training staff and students alike to use ManageBac very regularly. ManageBac’s PP statuses are Excellent, On-Track, Concern, and To Be Determined. They all have their own icons. Whenever a major deadline passes (e.g. Criterion A completion), I ask the teachers to “flip the flags.” Then, a few days later, I email the students and ask them to go into ManageBac and “check your flag!” If they see that they are to-be-determined or concern, then they need to make an appointment with their supervisor for possible improvements.
This is a little picture I made that I include in my student reminder emails.
Personal Project Certificates
Our school doesn’t do the final grade 10 exit assessments, which I’m happy about. To be honest, it seems really strange to have five years of inquiry learning capped by a one-off exam. This does mean, though, that we are no longer able to award the MYP Certificate. In leu of this, I’ve made some PP certificates for my kiddos.
