Personal Research Projects (PRP)

Several years ago, while attending the annual NELMS conference in Providence, RI, a few of us spent some time at a cutting edge school known as the MET. For me, one of the most interesting features of this school was the emphasis on an ongoing personal research project. Students conducted research on a question of their choice, periodically presenting their latest findings to an audience of teachers, classmates,  and on this one day, me. While intriguing, the resumption of middle school business led me to set this novel approach on the shelf.

It's finally time to dust the idea off.

This spring, I have been planning next year's customized learning program, applying things I've learned the hard way this year and heard or seen from others as well. Along the way, I've found that one of the challenges of working in a classroom heavily grounded in standards is that those standards tend to isolate content. One of my colleagues, who coincidentally visited the MET with me way back when, referred to these separate content groups as "silos".  The point that this silo-ization was never the intent behind standards based initiatives was well taken. If only something could be found to bridge these content barriers. One answer, that I plan to employ starting next fall, is to have students engage in Personal Research Projects (PRPs).

PRPs should be a good way for students to apply a fair measure of their learning from the ELA Common Core, be even more fully engaged in our individualized classroom, and be another catalyst for a positive learning culture. The keys to PRPs that I have identified so far are as follows.

• PRPs need to be based on students own higher order questions that require them to do something interesting (for them) from building the perfect theoretical Major League Baseball team using players throughout history to predicting the next must haves of the fashion world.

• PRPs need to be presented regularly. This was my favorite aspect of what I saw at the MET.  First, a young man shared his learnings and evolving insights about caffeine as a potential performance enhancing drug. Then the magic happened. Members of the audience shared their views, raised connecting questions of their own, and shared their own insights. Then the principal concisely packaged the questions that had been raised and laid out the rough plan for what the student needed to do prior to his next presentation. It was clear that the principal guided his recommendations using statements from viewers and required academic content. For example, I remember the student being asked to investigate the chemistry of coffee to a greater degree.

• PRPs need to be ongoing, long-term efforts. I love this aspect as students rarely have the opportunity to really dig deep in school. Not only should a PRP provide this opportunity in a way that helps the student meet required standards, but it's a perfect fit for our middle school's two year looping cycle. Imagine the wealth of insight a student should be able to share after engaging in two years of research!

I'm hopeful as I look toward a future of PRPs as a part of our customized learning approach. It makes me wonder if someday I will look back in wonder at how PRPs gradually became the program itself. In a way, that is my own Personal Research Project that I have the rest of my career to pursue.