Independent Project Update: Presentation Details and Due Dates

Independent Project Update!

Your notes were due April 30th. If anyone wants to upgrade, they need to show me their notes during a silent reading period.

Many of you are still working on your primary research, which is due by Monday, May 31st. I have talked with each one of you about what kind of research you are doing.

If you are doing an interview, you need to provide me with a copy of the questions you are asking, even if it is an interview you are doing at home. This way, I can help you expand on the questions if need be. All questions need to be sent to me ASAP in email. Thank you to those of you who have already done this! Think about how you will use this interview in your presentation in a creative way. Document your interview and turn it in with your project.

If you are doing an experiment, you need to document your experiment with a lab report using the scientific method. Please take pictures of what you do, so you can include them in your presentation. We would like to see parts of your process, not just the final product!

If you are doing a model or creating something, you need to take pictures along the way. Document your process as well as the final product, so you can include it in the presentation.

If you are doing a survey, you need to send Ms. D a copy of your survey first, and then I will help you send out the survey to our community. Think about how you will report on these survey results in a graph or chart in your presentation.

If you are doing an observation or visit to a location,  you need to document it with notes and an explanation of what you chose to do. Please include pictures and any other information you found from the observation/visit.

Next, we will be talking about your presentation and bibliography. The Presentation and Bibliography are due Tuesday, June 15th.

We will do presentations for Cohort B in class on Wednesday, June 16th as a group.

Here is how it will work:

We can’t have the presentations to the greater community in person due to COVID, but we can present to our own cohort in our classroom.

  1.  You are presenting to a group, and you need something engaging they can see or interact with. Each person will do this differently, so please don’t feel like you need to do exactly what everyone else is doing. You just need something engaging for your audience to look at while you talk. So, you can decide, do you want them to look at a poster, a trifold, your experiment, a series of photos, charts, graphs, a model, a handout of information, a cartoon, etc. Just looking at a computer screen isn’t enough. No one will have time to read all of your PowerPoint on presentation day, unfortunately.
  2.  If you create something electronic, then that will allow you to share with the entire community who can’t be there on presentation day. For example, I can post links on the blog to any Book Creator books, PowerPoint slideshows, Microsoft Word documents with paragraphs of writing, or photos that you may have. While people won’t read all of your PowerPoint on the presentation day, PowerPoints can still provide a great slideshow for them to see, and then others can read your PowerPoint on the blog.
  3.  During the presentation day, you can use: a computer, an iPad, one individual desk worth of space, chair, and wall space for putting up posters.
  4.  You will want to think about the key points you want to share and have them ready. When someone comes up to you on presentation day, you want a short and sweet version of the key information you found out. I suggest writing it on an index card, which I can provide to you.
  5.   Your bibliography can be in your PowerPoint, Book Creator book, or in an MS Word document. You don’t need a paper handout of the bibliography, but I will need to be able to see it in one of these formats.
  6.   Somewhere in your multiple presentation pieces you need to answer these questions or have these parts:
    1.  What is your topic?
    2.  Why were you interested in this topic?
    3.  What were the questions you had when you started?
    4.  What are your key findings?
    5.  What kind of primary research did you do?
    6.   What new questions do you have?
    7.  Bibliography

We will go over all of this in class. We decided as a whole class group to not do ZOOM or another complicated presentation method, as we have 24 students who need to present, and more students were interested in doing a group share on the same day. Thank you to the students for helping with discussion and decision making about our projects.

We will have computers available daily, but some work will need to be done at home over the next month and a half, so please keep some time after school each day reserved for project work.

Ask questions if you need help along the way!

Ms. D