Capstone Projects à la Remote

By Rob Sorensen, Ph.D.

FOR ALMOST TWENTY YEARS, Bear Creek seniors have concluded their last year in high school with a Senior Capstone Project. These projects allow students to develop and pursue a personally selected, self-directed venture during the last three weeks of the spring semester. Some students choose to immerse themselves in a new skill—like learning to knit or to bake bread—while others extend one of their interests into a new area—like writing music or developing a smartphone app. Many students produce works of art or independent research. Each student is asked to design a project that builds on his/her unique interests, exhibits a significant level of personal challenge, and advances his/her ability to articulate how his/her worldview has been explored, challenged, or changed by the experience. In this way, students demonstrate that they can take ownership of their own learning as they finish their high school experience.

Capstone projects have become a cherished part of the Bear Creek experience, and when it became clear that remote learning would continue through the end of the school year, seniors, their teachers, and administrators had to think through how to accomplish the important work of the Capstone projects in a new and challenging environment. This required some thoughtful changes to the typical process in order to both preserve the benefit of a student-directed project and comply with public health requirements.

Seniors design their own projects and submit a formal proposal in February, so when remote learning began in March, many seniors had already begun to make plans for their projects. And as remote learning continued, students started to recognize that their original plans, many of which included travel or large group activities, were no longer feasible. Despite this, there was a great deal of support for continuing Capstone projects from both students and faculty. Grade 12 faculty, led by Senior Capstone Project coordinators Kristin Dennison and me, worked closely with seniors to adjust projects so they were achievable during remote learning. Some students were able to retain much of their original proposals, but others had to completely redesign their projects. Eventually, all our seniors were able to develop projects that both fit their interests and goals and were possible within the confines of remote learning.

Faculty members Dr. Rob Sorensen, Dr. Karen Wright, and Mike Faris watch Kate B. present Mustang Crisis.

To accommodate the unique challenges of the spring of 2020, seniors were given additional class time to work on their projects. Seniors typically dedicate themselves full-time during the last three weeks of the semester; however, in 2020, we allocated an additional two weeks to the senior projects. With the extended timeframe, students had more flexibility and could devote themselves to additional planning as well as needed rest and reflection.

Each senior is assigned a teacher, administrator, or staff member to act as mentor throughout the project. Typically, students meet with their advisors at least twice a week. Since face-to-face meetings were not possible, seniors met with their advisors through video calls. Many advisors set up virtual spaces in Microsoft Teams for their assigned student’s project, allowing not only video calls but also the sharing of documents and other resources. Since one of the requirements for Senior Capstone Projects is that each student maintain a journal which is shared with his/her advisor, this feature was very helpful.

Perhaps the most significant part of the Senior Capstone Project is the oral defense. Each student is assigned a half-hour timeslot to present his/her project to a panel of teachers and administrators. Students explain what their projects entailed, what they learned through the process of designing and executing their projects, and how their worldviews have been explored, challenged, or changed by the project. After the presentation, the student answers questions from the panel and the audience of fellow students and guests. These presentations are a significant highlight during the last week of school for many students and provide not only the opportunity to see what seniors have accomplished with their projects, but also feature our students’ creativity and hard work. We are always encouraged to see how students extend their own interests into projects that have value for the larger community.

Maintaining the student’s public presentation experience was very important to the Capstone faculty as we re-imagined the experience for this senior class. Since in-person presentations were not an option in 2020, we turned to Microsoft Teams. Our hard-working technology coach, Linda

Lauren S. – The Stories of a Yellow Girl: Utilizing the storytelling mechanism of Chinese porcelain for modern tales.

Graham, spent hours setting up online meetings for all the students’ presentations. Linda also recruited a host, skilled with the technology, for each student presentation. The host was able to help the student and panel troubleshoot any technological issues that arose. It was also important to us that parents and other guests have the opportunity to attend the students’ virtual presentations, and the technology enabled us to provide links to those who wished to attend virtually.

Students had two options. They could make their presentations live during their allotted timeslots and answer questions immediately after, or they could show a pre-recorded presentation and then answer questions live. This flexibility allowed students to hedge against potential technological hiccups and gave many students the reassurance of being able to carefully prepare their remarks in advance of their actual presentation.

One particular benefit of hosting student presentations online was that it was easy to record every presentation; that way, members of the Bear 24 MODUS VIVENDI – Fall 2020 Creek community interested in student projects, but who may not have been able to attend at the appointed time, could still watch the seniors’ presentations.

Another unexpected result of online presentations was the creativity demonstrated by students in overcoming the limitations inherent in presenting virtually. On the whole, presentations were more visually rich than usual, perhaps reflecting students’ realization that online presentations are a strongly visual medium. Many students took advantage of the ability to pre-record their presentations by using innovative digital tools to create remarkable video recordings. We saw a number of very impressive presentations that could not have been easily accomplished in a more typical face-to-face environment.

Perhaps because of this level of forced creativity, an unprecedented number of projects were awarded honors this year. Honors projects included producing a professional-quality magazine promoting

environmental awareness and advocacy, writing a pilot episode for a TV show, and exploring how traditional Chinese pottery could help express a modern identity. These projects and others recognized as honors-level are particularly worthy of honor not only for the content, execution, and outcome, but also because these students accomplished them with a demonstrated high level of excellence while overcoming the challenges of the unique and unexpected conditions of the spring of 2020.

Unanticipated challenges have a way of forcing us to rethink some of our habits and assumptions. As Senior Capstone Projects Coordinator, this past spring’s experiences have left me with a number of things to consider for next year’s Capstone projects. First, during remote learning it was necessary to develop innovative ways for students, faculty, and advisors to communicate and collaborate throughout the course of their projects. I hope we can continue to use some of these tools even when they are no longer the only options. I was also impressed with the value of allowing students to prepare their presentations in advance and would like to consider whether some variant of this option might be made available to students during more traditional “live” presentations in the spring of 2021. Also, the ability to easily record each student’s presentation proved valuable to both faculty and families.

Completing Senior Capstone Projects under the strictures of remote learning was not anybody’s first choice. Nevertheless, the Class of 2020 demonstrated their mettle through challenging circumstances to produce Capstone projects that made me proud to be their advisor. I am encouraged as these young men and women prepare to lead in the future.

Dr. Sorensen has been on the faculty at Bear Creek since 2001, teaching in the history department and coaching speech and debate. He is a scholar of the Protestant Reformation and his book, Martin Luther and the German Reformation, was published by Anthem Press in 2016. Rob and his wife Janeen have three children attending Bear Creek, Paul ’23, Matt ’26, and Claire ’29. He holds a Ph.D. from Faulkner University.