Personal Project: Identifying Goals: Learning & Product Goals

Personal Goals

Each student sets their own goals based on something that they are passionate about. Students may draw inspiration from their prior experience in the MYP, such as:

• a global context that they find particularly compelling
• a service as action experience that they would like to build on
• a unit of inquiry in a subject they would like to explore further
• their interests or hobbies outside of school (existing or new)

 

All personal projects consists of two interrelated goals:

• a learning goal is what the student wants to learn
• a product (goal) is what the student wants to create

 

The project's starting point may be either the learning goal or the product. One learning goal can lead to different products, just as one product can relate to a variety of learning goals.

                                                          

 

Students may identify either a product goal first then a learning goal or vice versa. In reality, student research, critical reflection and work with supervisors supports a more recursive process but the two goals are always interrelated. Often students find the choice of either goals challenging, given the wide variety of options available to them. Below are two general approaches to identifying goals:

 

Starting Through a Learning Goal

A student may be interested in learning about computer programming. From this learning goal, they may identify multiple products that will allow them to achieve their learning goal: a website teaching other about coding, a game that requires coding, a research report about the development of different coding languages, and many others.

 

Starting Through a Product Goal

A student may be drawn to a specific product initially and identify appropriate learning goals. For example, a student who wishes to create a video game as their product may identify multiple possible learning goals: applying design-thinking in creating a game, bringing awareness of a social issue through the game, or applying creative and artistic skills, along with many other possibilities.

Note that the project can change, if necessary, during the process.