Requirements
Requirements of the Community Project
All of our guidelines are transferred directly from the IB Projects Guide, which was published in May, 2014. All students in Year 3 (8th grade) are required to complete a Community Project. Students are expected to spend approximately 15 hours on their project. This includes the time spending time in class, working with mentors, service time and writing and presenting the reflections. Students will present their project (however they choose) on May 20th and 21st.
All students will each have a mentor teacher. While they may use this person and any other adult as a resource, the students must complete the project independently (or with their student group). This is not meant to be a project that becomes the responsibility of any parent or other adult. The learning occurs when students develop an awareness of needs and address them through service.
Objectives of the Community Project
The objectives of the Community Project with the categories of Approaches to Learning (ATL) (in parentheses).
A. Investigating (Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Information Literacy, Media Literacy, and Transfer)
i. Define a goal to address a need within a community, based on personal interests.
ii. Identify prior learning and subject-specific knowledge relevant to the project.
iii. Demonstrate research skills.
B. Planning (Collaboration, Organization, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, and Reflection)
i. Develop a proposal for action to serve the need in the community.
ii. Plan and record the development process of the project.
iii. Demonstrate self-management skills.
C. Taking Action (Organization, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Transfer)
i. Demonstrate service as action as a result of the project.
ii. Demonstrate thinking skills.
iii. Demonstrate communication and social skills.
D. Reflecting (Communication and Reflection)
i. Evaluate the quality of the service as actions against the proposal.
ii. Reflect on how completing the project has extended their knowledge and understanding of service learning.
iii. Reflect on their development of ATL skills.
Students will use their final presentation and reflection paper to demonstrate how they have addressed the objectives. The model below shows the cyclical nature of the objectives.
