MIT 2008Independent Contract Project DescriptionWinter 2008IntroductionThis project provides an opportunity for you to learn more about a topic that is particularly relevant to your development as a teacher, in light of the needs and interests that emerged during your fall student teaching experience. You will search for information, organize and assimilate your key findings, and share what you learn with your colleagues. To gain the most from this opportunity, you should select a topic that is highly interesting to you and very relevant to your future teaching. This project will be a very important part of your winter MIT experience. Most weeks, Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings will be dedicated to its completion.Selecting a Topic Your topic must be definitely approved by your seminar faculty by Monday of week 2; prior to this, by the end of your first project seminar on the first day of the quarter, you will be asked to select a tentative topic.Sources of InformationYou can use a variety of sources as you pursue your topic, including: research articles from professional journals, articles from non-research journals, books, teacher interviews, and classroom observations. By the end of your first seminar on Monday you will be asked to tentatively identify the three major sources of information you will use in your investigations. Contract SeminarsThe contract seminar group serves important supporting functions: providing a place for you to share your findings as they are developing, providing ideas you may not have thought of, and helping you finalize your written report and presentation.The seminar groups will meet Monday afternoons on weeks 1,2,5,6,8. The anticipated topics for each Monday seminar are as follows: Week 1: Form seminar groups, share tentative topics, discuss sources of information, and complete a first draft of your project approval form. Week 2: Final approval of your contact topic, share and discuss some findings from one of your major sources of information.Week 5: Progress report and share some findings from your second major source.Week 6: Share some findings from your third major source and discuss proposed plans for communicating your overall findings: both your written report and your mini-workshop.Week 8: Bring a complete draft of your written report for peer editing; bring a draft of your workshop plan for feedback.Thursday Contract WorkWith the exception of the video workshop you will participate in during week 1 or 2, Thursday mornings will be dedicated time for you to work on your project. This will almost certainly include library/web research and may include visiting schools for observations or interviews. To help insure appropriate progress towards completing this project, you are asked to adhere to the following timeline:Week 1: investigate the viability of your 3 proposed sources of information; read and take notes from one of your sources of information; be prepared to discuss your sources and some of the information you have gathered from one of your sources the upcoming Monday.Weeks 2-5: information gathering; during these 4 important weeks you will be doing all, or at least the bulk of your data collection; be prepared to share your progress and some of the specificinformation you have gathered for Mondays of weeks 5 and 6. Weeks 6-7: during these weeks you should be preparing your written report and mini-workshop. For Monday of week 8 bring a full draft of your report and a tentative workshop outline to share during your final contract seminar. The PaperWrite a paper of approximately 10 double spaced pages that briefly describes the process you went through (1 page or less) and then summarizes your learning. In the first portion of the paper,describe your topic, give a short explanation as to why you chose it, and briefly describe the process you went through to learn about the topic. For the rest of the paper, share your findings ina way that will be useful to yourself and others. This paper will likely only be able to capture a subset of your findings, so chose carefully what you will present and communicate it clearly; yourtarget audience for your writing is other teachers. Finally, be sure to give credit to your sources. Use APA format. This paper must be completed and emailed to your seminar leader no later than 1 PM on Thursday, February 28. We hope that an electronic version of all the conference papers will then be available for the contract conference, which starts the following Monday. The Mini-WorkshopDesign and conduct a 20-30 minute learning experience for your colleagues based on some subset of your findings. You are encouraged to be creative and to use good pedagogical practices as you share the useful and important information you have gathered – keeping in mind the limited time you have to teach something useful to your colleagues. You will need to include evidence of your planning for this workshop in your portfolio – typically a handout and/or a detailed lesson plan.Independent Contract Approval FormMIT 06-08, Winter 2008Your Name:Faculty Name:Tentative Planning (complete on January 7 during seminar)Describe your tentative topic:Describe, tentatively, your three primary sources of information for this projectFinalized Contract (complete by January 14 and bring to seminar for faculty to collect – make acopy for yourself as well)Describe your topic:Describe the rationale for your topic:List one or more specific learning outcomes:Describe your three primary sources of information for this project in the order in which you willlikely use them.your signature, signifying that you have read and understand the requirements and timelines for of this project ___________________________ faculty signature, signifying that your choice of topic and sources has been approved
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