Capstone—Should Middle and High School Students Do a Thesis?
A good parent, who cares about her kids and is savvy about what is happening with school reform, asked me if I knew anything about capstone projects. She’s concerned and I don’t blame her. For years, the Great Schools Partnership has been pushing middle and high school students to do a capstone project much like a college thesis.
First, encouraging students to do projects is not a bad thing per se and how elaborate such projects are should be determined by the student and the teacher. But shouldn’t projects come from within the school, or the local school district, and not be imposed on all schools by a national nonprofit? If you want to worry about nationalistic schooling, doesn’t this fit the bill?
Also, if you Google capstone, you will find it to be like close reading in that colleges require it. Here it is at Duke University Law School and here it is applied toMechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University. There are many more if you look.
For students in middle and high school the education reformers describe what they mean by a capstone project.
While capstone projects can take a wide variety of forms from school to school, a few examples will help to illustrate both the concept and the general educational intentions:
- Writing, directing, and filming a public-service announcement that will be aired on public-access television
- Designing and building a product, computer program, app, or robot to address a specific need, such as assisting the disabled
- Interning at a nonprofit organization or a legislator’s office to learn more about strategies and policies intended to address social problems, such as poverty, hunger, or homelessness
- Conducting a scientific study over several months or a year to determine the ecological or environmental impact of changes to a local habitat
- Researching an industry or market, and creating a viable business plan for a proposed company that is then “pitched” to a panel of local business leaders
Parents who like to “supervise” their student’s science project (if you know what I Capstone—Should Middle and High School Students Do a Thesis?: