Monday, January 17, 2011

Capstone Planning and Video Clips

We are working to establish better means of communication and collaboration to support students in their work on their Capstone Pilot Projects. But the deadline for presentations to the faculty and School Board are pressing. So, I resorted to any means available: email, Facebook message, and face-to-face explanations of this challenge.

Thank you for your willingness to help develop the concept of Capstone Projects at Mt. Ararat. The MTA Capstone Committee has made progress specifying characteristics of the Capstone Project and Pilot ( http://MTACapstone11.pbworks.com ). We hope the Capstone Study Circles that some of you have also chosen to join will help to explain and help to refine those ideas. Clearly we still have more work. I suspect that you have many questions. Please come to MTA 107 during AST if you want to discuss the process and your plans.

The Committee is preparing to present a summary of their work to the MTA Faculty during the professional development day at the end of January. The Committee wants to convince the faculty that Capstone Projects will be valuable learning experiences. Then they will present to the School Board. They very much want to have brief video clips (literally 10 seconds) from each of the participants in the Pilot about their project plans. Since several of you are going out into the community to do your projects, we'd like to include an image from your work (if you have or can take one) as part of the clip. We will film in MTA 107 during AST blocks for those who are able and by special arrangement for those who have other commitments.

Please consider what you might say in 10 seconds about yourself and your plan for a Capstone Project. Sara has already started hers so I can guess what she might say:

"Hi, I'm Sara. I am in the health careers program at the Region Ten Tech Center. For my Capstone Project, I'm job shadowing a radiologist at Parkview Hospital to learn whether I'd like to specialize in that field." [Cut to an onsite picture of controls for a CAT scanner at Parkview.]

CAT scanner for simulation
Credit to Liz West with a Creative Commons License.

If you don't know what to say, then come to 107 and we can figure it out together. I work both at the high school AND the middle school so send a reply so that I'll be sure to be there to meet with you.

Stephen Spaeth
Student Projects Coordinator

Clearly, we need to improve this facet of the operation if we are going to develop a sustainable program.

3 comments:

SC Spaeth said...

This morning, our District Sys Admin for Infinite Campus gave me access to the student information and messaging service. The high school has been using the AST tab to notify students of requests to get support. While Dr. King thought it may not be necessary, Josh Ottow is eager to get the video clips done.
So, today, I requested AST meetings with Daniel, Summer, Michelle, Sara and Brooke for Wednesday 1/19. The reason included an opt out for AST conflicts:

01/19/2011 AST_Teacher_Location=Spaeth107 107 - Capstone Support Reason=Orientation/ Only if no conflict with other AST

SC Spaeth said...

I wrote the following message to MTA administrators:

Craig and Josh:
I used AST request system as a way to connect with a subset of students to share info and schedule the video clip filming process. I had a good session with Summer and she is excited about the prospect of learning more about pharmacy practice as a potential career.

Unfortunately, she is the only one of the 5 I invited who responded.

I checked the AST List that Cathi sent and none of students listed other AST conflicts. Do you have any suggestions for improving success rate? Alternative strategies?


Clearly we need more effective approaches to connecting with our primary audience!

SC Spaeth said...

By Shizhao (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons