People enjoy using keywords like “feminism”, “racism”, and “climate change”, and say these are important topics that need to be discussed. People also argue that the education system sucks and needs reforms such as sex ed or basic finance classes. So what if you used the business model of “trying to appeal to social media by using keyword so that consumers think we care about humanity”, and applied it to education? You get the International Bacculaerate education system, where you don’t have sex ed or finance classes, but you do have ATL skills!
Ok, I’m sure IB was created with genuine intention to improve education. One of the ways I say it does that well is through the personal project. Every MYP 5 student (I hate how grade 10 is MYP 5, grade 9 is MYP 4, etc. Its just confusing and dumb), must work on a project of their own choice and write a 15 page report on it. It is mandatory, and if a student fails the project they must repeat grade 10.
While it is graded and you have to follow guidelines, it makes working on a project or business idea so much easier because it is not just an extracuricular, it is also schoolwork. There is also the plus side of having a supervisor and coordinator who guide you.
I bring this all up because I happen to be a grade 10 student at an IB school (while not quite yet, since it is summer break), meaning I have a personal project. I thought it would be nice to write some blogs as I work on the project. It is a quick and easy blog idea, and becomes real undeinable evidence of my work.
What is my Project
Long story short it is about gamfication in education.
Short story long I will be making 2-3 units that will be a week long. These units will use gamification and/or game based learning to make education more engaging for students. Once I’ve designed them, I’ll have students at my own school participate in these units and collect data from interviews and tests. I’ll analyse that data, visualise it and my project will be complete.
And if that sounds like a lot, thats only the stuff I gotta do in summer break. After that I have to prepare for a project exhibition, and write the report I mentioned earlier. I think most kids would be worried about writing 15 pages, but I don’t think its a big challenge. I have to write double that for my arts portfolio so maybe thats why it sounds fine. To be fair criteria B and C of the report does sound pretty damn annoying (reflections suck).
Project Status so far
Now that you have context, here is my project status so far + thoughts
- Written a product & learning goal, personal interest, sucess criteria & action plan
- I made a unit plan for IH (grade 8) and sent it to the respective Sir. He has not yet replied to the email so I don’t know what he thinks of it.
- I still need to create the materials for the IH unit.
- I need to send two more proposals to teachers asking them if I can design a unit for them.
- I emailed the MYP coordinator asking for permission to conduct the units and if I could recieve contact information of some teachers. It seems she missed the email so I had to re-email her. She replied saying she’ll discuss with the project coordinator so I have to wait for another response.
- You might notice the amount of emails I am waiting for. This is the main issue with my project. It requires a lot of emailing to get done, and dependency on others. This means I spend a lot of time waiting for reponses.
- I made a notion page for the project. Its not neccessary, but the more new tools I use the more content I have for my report. I can argue orgnaizational skills (self-managment) because I used a dedicated workspace. I will also have a record of all the to dos I made for this project.
(Notion page pic)
For my IH unit, I considered using “We become what we behold”, but had to scrap that because of blood + was not fitting well.
I would love to show you the unit plan directly but I would rather do that when I feel the unit is finalised.
Another Project Status Update
From the time I wrote these blog, to editing it some time has passed so I’m going to add more information here:
- The MYP coordinaor still has not sent a follow up so I’m just going to find the teachers and contact them myself.
- I created the IH unit materials.
- In response to the whole “having to wait for emails” issue, I’m not working on the project everday. Instead, I’m working when I need to and I am not ruminating over the project all the time.
- Sometimes I forget to use the notion page (lol), but I am putting my to dos in a database, and I’m actually writing this blog in a notion page.
- I contacted the 9-10th grade Urdu teacher. She agreed and I just complete the unit plan. I will send it today night or tomorrow.
- Next I need to create the materials for the Urdu unit, edit it if she says to adjust something and contact the next teacher.
And thats the end! I hope it was a nice read (tho I think it became a bit of a bore in the end). If you guys have any suggestions for my projet (a gamification idea, etc) or are working on your own personal project (IB or not) and would like to talk about it, please let me know in the comments! If you would like to learn more about my personal project, you can check out the blogs in the following list, or you can check out my drawings on instagram. Bye!
List of Personal Project blogs