Progress building capacity - Capstone

Met with both Capstone Pilot students and with MAMS ITeam today and got encouraging signs of students developing their understanding and capacity to undertake more challenging work:

Capstone:

• Sara inspired us with her descriptions of Capstone work she already has underway.
• Several students have already sent out inquiry email messages and have been waiting patiently for responses that have not yet come. They are ready to pick up the phone to see whether they can get better responses that way.
• Dan said that his jazz ensemble had just produced a performance CD. They are now looking for more gigs. Noted the challenge of getting members out of school for Capstone performances. We briefly discussed video and other ways to share the performance part.
• Haley described what she wants to do and Sara was able to help her with knowledge and experience that she has developed from her parallel work at Maine Region Ten. Sara offered to introduce Haley to her teacher at Maine Region Ten. We paused to reflect how this is a very important example of how we can scale this operation: share knowledge and share process so that others can appreciate it and extend.
• Nick described his plan to find and execute off-season conditioning but then went on to say that he planned to integrate his work in the WebTeam class with his Capstone Project. He (and others?) will build a web site to share appropriate parts of his conditioning portfolio.
• Luke tried to contact the Marine Resources Officer in order to get expert assistance with learning about and working on the invasive species challenges.
• ...

We are using a Facebook group MTA Capstone Pilot to support some of our work on the Pilot. We chose Facebook because students already use it and check it more frequently than other ways of communicating. Since Facebook limits access, we will need to make a special effort to share with broader communities.