ATL in the Personal Project Process Journal
The Moment of Choice
The Personal Project will have an enormous impact in your life as a learner. Initially, it will be a culmination of your MYP experience, and it will give way to the Extended Essay experience in DP. This assignment, the PP, represents an opportunity to conduct research on something personal, something that matters to you. Moreover, it’s relevant because this will be YOUR contribution to the already knowledge in the area you choose. For this reason, you should not take it lightly.
* The Global context you choose will determine how you will take action.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L326o5JstnY]
Video courtesy or Ms. Laura England
Criterion A:
Investigating
Where can you find information for your project?
Evaluating Resources
Once you have chosen the research topic of your Personal Project, the time to find in-depth information about it has arrived. It is important to remember that even though the project is PERSONAL, we are not (yet) authorities in our topic. For this reason, we need to find information that will help us have a clear understanding of the topic, so that we can clearly know how we can contribute to it, and how much we can learn from it.
Knowing where can find information will help us profile our project successfully, for the information contained in different sources has different purposes and audience. The nature of the source you decide to consult will determine the kind of information you will receive. You are strongly advised to utilize a wide variety of sources.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEcDuECkne0]
Video courtesy or Ms. Laura England
Criterion B:
Planning
* Your journal is possibly the most important piece of your personal project.
These are some suggestions:
1. Create a list of the major stages of your personal project journey. Indicate your expected outcome and the real outcome.
2. Prepare a timeline to keep track of your progress.
3. Write detailed specifications for your product so that you and your supervisor can engage in dialogue on what needs to be done in order for you to meet all the expectations.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBqR4JTLdDM]
Video courtesy or Ms. Laura England
Criterion C:
Taking action
*Note that action and service can happen in many ways.
As you start looking at your research, begin to summarize your findings and evaluating the effectiveness of the methods and tools you employed in your research (gathering and analyzing data), it is important that you help others see your thinking process. Thus, try to make it as visual as possible.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_25RUny13eE]
Video courtesy or Ms. Laura England
Criterion D:
Reflecting
In your personal project you made the following choices:
In your reflection process, you will become aware of how all several ATL skills are present in different stages of your personal project. This is where your Process Journal will be helpful as it will allow you to go back and see how your understandings were being transformed at each new stage, because of your findings.
As you write your report, make sure you explain at least one aspect of each ATL skill. Look at the following excerpt.
