Writing your personal project report Tuesday 8th December 2015

The aim of the report is to explain: The goal of your project Exploration of the global context Specifications of the outcome/product Why you chose this project Timeline and tasks completed Research: Questions you had to answer Sources and their evaluation Techniques used Reflection on the quality of the outcome/product

Structure: The report must include: Title page Table of contents Body of the report Works Cited Page Appendices.

Title page: Title Your name Supervisor’s name Word count School name Year Your cover page must clearly convey the required information and may include a photo or picture if you wish.

Table of contents: You may wish to look at previous years’ examples on what the report might look like, but you must structure your report according to the sections shown here. As the assessment criteria have changed from pervious years, so has the structure of the report. This organization of the different sections will allow you to address all of the objectives of the assessment criteria. Looking at how students in the past few years have structured their report can be useful, but please remember that their reports were a bit different. What would you discuss in each of these sections?

Introduction: From Topic to Guiding Question: explain why you chose your goal. What is your topic? What made you choose your topic? Why did this topic interest you? How much prior experience or understanding of this topic did you have? What guiding question did you design from the global context and topic? What process did you use to decide on your guiding question? Why is your question one that requires more than a simple answer? What goal did you set for your project?

Introduction: Choice of global context: why this global context and not another one? What global context was the focus for your project? Why did you choose that particular global context? What specific features of the global context did you intend to focus upon in your project and why? How can someone recognize the global context in the question? How can they recognize the topic in the question?

CRITERION A: INVESTIGATION In this section, make sure you: Define a clear and highly challenging goal, Explain what the context for the project was, Identify prior learning, Identify subject-specific knowledge that is consistently highly relevant to the project, Demonstrate excellent research skills.

CRITERION A: INVESTIGATION Useful questions you might want to answer: What is it you were trying to achieve? What did you before you started? Which electronic resources did you use? Which human resources did you use? How did you make your choices about what information to use and what to discard?

CRITERION B: PLANNING In this section, make sure you: Develop rigorous criteria for the product/outcome, Present a detailed and accurate plan, Record the development process of the project, Demonstrate excellent self-management skills.  

CRITERION B: PLANNING Useful questions you might want to answer: What “measuring tool” did you use to decide that your product was good or bad? What criteria did you put in place to help you successfully complete your investigation and your project overall? Tell us about the step by step guide you used to make sure you completed your project (photos, research, websites, plans on paper, experts, etc.). What decisions did you make based on the information you discovered?  

CRITERION C: TAKING ACTION In this section, make sure you: Create an excellent product/outcome in response to the goal, global context and criteria, Demonstrate excellent thinking skills, Demonstrate excellent communication and social skills.  

CRITERION C: TAKING ACTION Useful questions you might want to answer: Why did you choose this particular project? What are your goal, global context and criteria? In which way(s) are they connected? Show how your thinking skills helped you develop the product differently from what was originally planned. Show you had to communicate with other people (BBIS/outside of school) to get the information you were looking for. How did you develop your communication and social skills? Can you show/prove that both actually developed? If so, how?  

CRITERION d: reflecting In this section, make sure you: Present an excellent evaluation of the quality of the product/outcome against your criteria Present excellent reflection on how completing the project has extended your knowledge and understanding of the topic and the global context Present excellent reflection on your development as an IB learner through the project  

CRITERION d: reflecting Useful questions you might want to answer: How did the global context give you a different or better understanding of your topic? What exactly did you learn from your investigation? How well did you do the project, according to your self-assessment? What new skills did you learn, or what existing skills did you improve? Which of the Learner Profile qualities did you find yourself exhibiting at different times and why? What action should be taken by yourself and others as a result of what you discovered through your investigation?

Important Reminders: Plagiarism and academic honesty: Ownership The work in the personal project must be your own. You and your supervisor must use the academic honesty form provided by the IB to note your meeting dates and the main points discussed and to declare the academic honesty of work. If you plagiarise (copy) someone else’s words without acknowledging where they came from, you will fail. You will also fail if you copy someone else’s personal project and will be required to do a new personal project under the guidance of the same supervisor. This is a very serious offence. The consequences of plagiarism and cheating are based on the school’s Book of Regulations and the Code of Conduct.

Important Reminders: Help Can anyone help me to edit my project report? The project report should be as error-free as possible and it must be comprehensible to whoever reads it. You can approach family, friends and teachers for assistance with grammar, punctuation and spelling matters. However, while they can help you with editing, they can’t WRITE the project report for you (see paragraph above). It must ultimately be your own work. While your supervisor may give you feedback on style and grammar, he/she is not responsible for proofreading any drafts of your report.

Important Reminders: Additional guidance: You should review the report with your supervisor to receive formative feedback before you submit your final draft for summative assessment. You may use any form of visual support. You must acknowledge all your sources regardless of the format of presentation. Neither written nor other formats of reports should include question and answer sessions or formal interviews. In case you have conducted an interview, the transcript of the interview has to be included in the appendices section. The report can be assessed as a live performance or as a recording.

Important Reminders: Page Numbering: You should include page numbers to indicate how many pages there is within your personal project. You do not number the cover, contents page, works cited page or appendices. You number the pages of your personal project itself so that you supervisor knows exactly how many pages they should be expecting to read. Footnotes: You may use footnotes to explain points further that you have been unable to fully examine in the body of your personal project due to the word limit.   Using a Computer: Please make sure you always save your report on the Cloud and keep a back-up on the hard-drive of your computer. It is incredibly frustrating when months of hard work disappear because of a technical error/issue... Length of the report: The length of the personal project report must be a minimum of 1,500 words and a maximum of 3,500 words, not including the Works Cited page and Appendices.

Questions: Why is your process journal important when writing your report? In which section of the report would you talk about problems that arose and how you solved them? In which section would you talk about how you set up your project and what your timeline looked like? What material, other than process journal excerpts, would you include in your appendix? If you had to change your specifications over the course of the project, in which section would you explain why? How long should the report be? When is the first draft due? What do you know about citing sources in your report?

If you have any questions, send an email to david.queva@bbis.de or ann-marie.furbur@bbis.de.