P3: Personal Passion Project
Our P3 (Personal Passion Project) program provides an opportunity for middle school students to engage in projects designed by them! Students have time in their weekly schedule where they work with a teacher/ coach and an expert mentor on a project entirely chosen by the student.
Our learning goals for the P3 Program include:
Understanding design thinking as a problem-solving process.
Pursuing a student-chosen passion throughout the entire school year.
Improving communication skills by working with a mentor.
Organizing and completing a large project from start to finish.
This year, all middle schoolers are connecting with a real-world problem associated with their own passion and interests. Students then use the Design Thinking process to design solutions to their chosen problem. The direction in which students take their project and solutions is entirely up to them. Allowing students to choose a problem to focus on, in addition to identifying their own passions, provides them with a voice when completing authentic tasks, ultimately leading to deeper connections in their learning. Through this project, students will develop their critical thinking skills as they adopt an entrepreneurial mindset when solving problems. They will learn about empathy as they interview real users who they will ultimately solve a problem for. Additionally, students will leverage their already existing skills, and develop new ones, as they design a meaningful solution to the problem they’re investigating.
As part of the Design Process, students will develop prototypes for solutions to the problem they’ve chosen to focus on. From there, they will test their prototypes with real users, get feedback and then iterate on their solutions. At the end of the project, students will have the opportunity to share their work with the wider community. Our first sharing of this work will be at our P3 Expo in March, with more opportunities to share later in the school year.
What is P3? Our students explain it best, in the video below!
Students have time to dive even more deeply into their chosen topic during a special week in March: Experience Week.
An important part of the P3 program is mentorship. Each student is paired with a mentor who they can consult with on their project. This could be a Roycemore alumnus, a fellow parent, an Upper School student, or another member of our amazing community. Students are expected to be in touch with their mentor via email about once a week. We also encourage video calls or in-person visits, if the mentor is local. All visitors to the school are run through our background checking software before working with any students.
We are working hard to secure mentors for each project, but could still use a few more! Are you interested in serving as an expert mentor for our P3 program? Please fill out the form at the bottom of this page, or by clicking this link. We will contact you if one of our students chooses to pursue a project in your area of expertise.
Parents: If you have any questions about your child’s mentor, please feel free to email or call Mrs. Shutters anytime.
For more information about the P3 program, please contact Beth Shutters, Director of Curriculum and Innovation, at eshutters@roycemoreschool.org.
Below are our guidelines and FAQ for those who are serving as P3 mentors.
Thank you mentors!!
Below is a description of how students will be evaluated on their P3 work. You may notice that the rubric is tied to the 7 Habits of Highly Successful Teens; students will be learning about these habits in various places throughout the school year.