The personal project is truly personal because each student sets their own goal based on something that they find interesting. Students may draw inspiration from their prior experience in the MYP, such as:
Similarly, students may draw inspiration from their interests and hobbies outside school. They may also consider developing new ones.
Learning Goals and Product Goals
The project consists of two interrelated parts:
The success criteria, developed by the student, measure the degree of excellence to which the product aspires or the terms under which the product can be judged to have been successful.
Action Plan
Definition: “A detailed plan outlining actions needed to reach one or more goals.” (Wikipedia)
Working with the WAB’s timeline for the project (see below), students plan the time they need to spend on their personal projects by drawing up a timetable that gives them an overall view of everything they have to achieve. They can then add daily or weekly details showing everything they have to do.
The action plan must show how students will create the product and fulfill all the success criteria. It should include major goals and minor steps that are dated. It is created before beginning with the product.
For this step of the project, students may draw inspiration from similar action plans created for the individuals and societies subjects or other projects they have completed
Action plans can include action tables, Gannt charts, to-do lists, calendar tasks, a step-by-step logical plan, storyboards, graphs, a bullet journal, a spreadsheet, flow charts, equipment and materials lists, slippage chart, goal charts, project timelines, kanban boards or scrum boards.
ATL Skills Applied to Learning Goal
Students identify, develop and reflect on specific ATL skills that are applied to help achieve their learning goal. They should document their development by curating evidence of process in their Process Journal found in MyTime.
Students should develop awareness of and capacity for identified ATL skills. They will explain their use of skills and combine this with evidence to process in their report. The key is that skills identified were applied to help achieve the learning goal (not a general discussion of how they developed in terms of skills). Students justify strengths and limitations of their identified skills and use evidence to justify their explanation.
ATL Skills Applied to Product (Goal)
Students identify, develop and reflect on specific ATL skills that are applied to help achieve their product goal. They should document their development by curating evidence of process in their Process Journal found in MyTime.
Students should develop awareness of and capacity for identified ATL skills. They will explain their use of skills and combine this with evidence to process in their report. The key is that skills identified were applied to help achieve the product goal (not a general discussion of how they developed in terms of skills). Students justify strengths and limitations of their identified skills and use evidence to justify their explanation.
Reflecting on Impact of Project on the Student as a Learner
Students reflect on the impact of the project on themselves or their learning. This should include not only deeper knowledge and understanding of the topic but how students developed as learners using the IB Learner Profile.
The reflection should be deep and include challenges faced and solutions that helped overcome those challenges. They should also consider the impact on future learning, for example in the Diploma Programme. Students identify lasting impacts of the project and use evidence to justify their claims.
Evaluation of Product
Students use the success criteria they developed in the planning phase of the project to evaluate the product against each success criteria. The success criteria (sometimes called specifications) are used to assess the extent to which the product goal was achieved. Normally, students develop a rubric to guide the assessment. They include justification and reasoning for the final assessment of each success criteria using specific examples.
Students may document with images key features or elements of the product to support their argument. The analysis should be detailed and include identified causes for successes (or areas for development). Students' opinions should not be the only source of data or information. Their assessment should include audience/stakeholder/user/expert reviews collected through conversations or surveys as well as supervisor input.
