SENIOR CAPSTONES In order to graduate, all Seniors must complete an Honors Capstone. Honors Capstones are year-long courses designed to ensure that every Senior has an indepth research experience in a selected area of passion guided by a dedicated Windward teacher. All Capstones will involve research, and many will also include experiential and entrepreneurial components, interdisciplinary work, artistic expression, collaboration, experiments and analysis, and/or service-learning. These courses will culminate in May with a communitywide celebration of learning to highlight the intellectual curiosity of our Senior scholars. Honors Capstone: AP Statistics Prerequisites: Algebra 2/Trigonometry and departmental approval. This course is similar to an introductory, non-calculus-based, college-level statistics course. Students develop strategies for collecting, organizing, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data. They will then design, administer, and tabulate results from surveys and experiments. Probability and simulations aid students in constructing models for chance behavior. Sampling distributions provide the logical structure for confidence intervals and hypothesis tests. Students use a TI-nspire graphing calculator and Web-based applets to investigate statistical concepts. To develop effective statistical communication skills, students are required to prepare frequent written and oral analyses
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of real data. This course will be taught concurrently with the AP Statistics course; however, students are not required to take the AP Exam in May. Students will complete a capstone final research project and presentation, applying their knowledge of data collection and analysis to a topic of their choosing.
Honors Capstone: Collaborative Arts Enrollment only with permission of the instructors The Collaborative Arts Capstone is founded on the principle that collaboration and integration of diverse perspectives is a powerful way to make art. This course provides Seniors with the rich opportunity to express how they see the world and what they can contribute to it. As we move through various kinds of artistic practices, the class addresses fundamental questions about art: Why do we create art? How does art get made? And how do we continue to make art that is provocative and relevant to the larger community? Performing Arts students and Visual and Media Arts students from all disciplines come together to create several small-group collaborative projects, culminating in one large collaboration for the Capstone colloquium. Performing and VMA faculty, along with guest artists, assist students with critical feedback, design integration, and performance or project preparation. No prerequisites are required.
Honors Capstone: Historical Analysis The History Capstone gives students an opportunity to explore specialized topics in history. The course begins as a history seminar focused on the invention of race and ethnicity. Students engage with scholarly research, lead and participate in seminar-style discussions and analyze secondary and primary sources to produce a series of essays on themes including identity, citizenship and migration. The second half of the course is dedicated to instructing students in the process and rigor of writing a college-level research paper. A field trip to UCLA provides students with an opportunity to gather research materials. Students work closely with the instructor and CTL research librarians to research and refine their topics and to develop their arguments through drafts. The course culminates in a formal presentation of the students’ work to the school community.
Honors Capstone: Psychology The Honors Capstone in Psychology is the student’s first step in the transition from knowledge consumer to becoming a knowledge producer. It provides an opportunity for students with strong interests in psychology to build on research concepts to deepen their understanding of a particular field of study. Participants will engage in a multi-disciplinary approach that leads to an understanding that theoretical research in psychology can facilitate individual growth and social transformation. The capstone task is to survey and evaluate research on a specific topic to produce a literature review on that topic. Graduates of the course report that the capstone process prepared them to write papers required of college students.
