Clifford Travel Club Presents:

Your Personal Inquiry Project

The World is Yo ur Classroom!

The World is Your Classroom Overview

Project Aims:

This project is designed to encourage you to become creative, critical and reflective thinkers. The intent of this project is
for you to make connections between your studies in traditional subjects and the real world which you will encounter
during this experiential learning opportunity. This inquiry will ensure that your learning is deeper, more personally
meaningful and longer lasting than what typically takes place during tourism based trips.

Nature of the Project:

This personal project is designed to develop an area of your personal interest related to the upcoming trip. Your project
should revolve around a challenge that motivates and interests you. The project challenge or goal that you set for
yourself should be one which will involve inquiry and reflection before, during and after the trip. You will receive
guidance and feedback throughout the process from Ms. Willett and Mr. Hildebrandt as well as your fellow travelers. By
sharing your projects with each other you will extend your learning. In addition, by spending time working and learning
with your fellow travelers you will begin to build friendships and a sense of community with your group long before we
leave on our journey.

Objectives:

A: Investigating
i. Define a clear goal for the project, based on personal interest
ii. Identify prior learning and subject-specific knowledge relevant to the project
iii. Demonstrate research skills
B: Planning
i. Develop criteria for the product/outcome
ii. Plan and record the development process
iii. Demonstrate self-management skills
C: Collaborating
i. Develop a way to share your learning with your trip-mates
ii. Contribute to your trip-mates learning by giving them regular feedback
iii. Demonstrate communication and social skills
D: Reflecting
i. Evaluate the quality of your product/outcome against their criteria
ii. Reflect on how completing the project extended your knowledge and understanding of the topic
iii. Reflect on how completing the project impacted the trip experience
The World is Your Classroom Requirements and Expectations
Getting Started:

1. Documenting the Process: Your Process Journal

Your process journal is where you will document your learning throughout your project. You can keep your
journal as a word document, create a blog, portfolio, video or use any format you like to maintain it.

You must show your Inquiry Supervisor (one of the teachers organizing the trip), Learning Mentor and
travel club peers evidence of your process documented in your journals when you meet with
him/her/them.

The Process Journal IS: The Process Journal ISNT:

Used throughout the project to document its Used on a daily basis unless this is useful for the student
development
A place to record initial thoughts and developments, Written up after the process has been completed
brainstorming, possible lines of inquiry and further
questions raised
A place for recording interactions with sources such as Additional work on top of the project; it is part of and
teachers, supervisors, outside contributors supports the project
A place to record selected research and to maintain a A diary with detailed writing about what was done
bibliography
A place for storing useful information such as A static document with only one format
quotations, pictures, ideas, photographs
A means of exploring ideas and solutions An essay
A place for evaluating work completed
A place for reflecting on learning
Devised by the student in a format that suits his or her
needs
A record of reflections and feedback received

In your process journal you should:

o Date every entry
o Aim for one entry every week. Entries can include:
Brainstorming, thinking maps
Notes, charts, short paragraphs
Notes on what has been learned from research
Bibliography of resources
Pictures, sketches, photographs
Self and peer assessment
Challenges/difficulties faced
Questions to ask your supervisor and answers received
Feedback from peers
2. Choose your inquiry topic

As you think about choosing your inquiry topic, consider the following questions to get you started:

What is something I have always wanted to learn but have never had the opportunity?
Why did I choose to go on this trip? What is it about the destination that interests me?
What can I learn now that will make the trip experience more meaningful to me?
What are my future goals and how can I use this trip to explore my areas of interest?
What do I know about the destination? What can I learn from the people, history or culture?

Example topic: Photography

3. Select a Learning Mentor

Once you have a general idea of your inquiry topic, identify a teacher in the International School with whom
you will meet at least once a month and who will help to guide you through your project

Your Learning Mentor should be a current teacher of yours whose subject area is most closely
related to your general topic
Your Learning Mentor should be one of your current teachers so that
o You have regular contact with them
o They have subject/discipline expertise to share with you
o You can potentially receive extra credit in their current class for this project
If you cannot find a Learning Mentor related to your general topic, or if the appropriate teacher
does not wish to assist you in this project, please meet with your Inquiry Supervisor as soon as
possible to find an alternative

Example Learning Mentor: Art or Technology teacher

4. Develop your SMART goal

You should develop a goal that you can accomplish, but that challenges your knowledge, skills or
techniques in an appropriate way. Make sure that you can achieve your goal with the time and resources
available to you. Discuss your goal with your Learning Mentor and your Inquiry Supervisor to make sure it
is realistic, not too simple or too complex.

Example Goal: Produce a coffee table style photography book to go with the yearbook which documents your
travel club experience.

5. Develop your criteria for success

How will you know that your project is successful? This is probably the only time that you not only get to
select your topic but also get to determine how your project will be evaluated. You will create your own
 rubric that will be used by your Learning Mentor to evaluate your project. Working with your Learning
Mentor and Inquiry Supervisor, you decide what constitutes a high-quality product/outcome.

You should not define your criteria until you have spent some time researching your goal. Your criteria
should only be determined once you have a clearer understanding of what you want to achieve and what
your product/outcome will be.

Example Criteria for Success: would take into consideration photographic composition, publishing design
choices, accompanying photo descriptions etc.

6. Develop your process

Determine the steps you will take to reach your goal. Prior knowledge will influence your work but you
must show evidence of new learning throughout your project, therefore:
Research will be a necessary component of your projects process
You must select a range of sources and a variety of source types including: subject-area content,
people, personal experience, survey data, published media, internet resources, interviews, video or
audio recordings, images etc.

Example process: research photography skills, interview yearbook staff for pointers, watch videos on how to
take good photographs, research the aesthetics of photography, sample coffee table books as examples,
attend a workshop, study the trip itinerary to plot out expected chapters of your book and what images you
hope to capture

7. Reflect! Reflect! Reflect!

You must reflect on your learning throughout your project. These reflections must be included in your
process journal. Reflection topics might include:
What am I learning? How am I learning it?
What strategies am I using to help me learn?
Whats going well?
Where am I struggling? What do I do when Im struggling? What helps?
Do I need to ask for help? Who should I ask? What do I do with the advice they give me?
Do I need to adjust my plan or goal?
How do I keep myself motivated?
Am I providing valuable feedback to my peers? How can I help them?

8. Feedback

The travel club will meet regularly to share project progress so that you can learn from each other. Each
traveler will be expected to briefly share the current progress of their project. You are expected to provide
critical feedback to your peers and to accept critical feedback from them. This is an opportunity for you to
learn from each other, both of the specific area of interest as well as the process.
9. Present Final Outcome/Product

Your final product/outcome artifact will be due 1 month after returning from the trip experience. This will
give you time to incorporate learning or evidence from the experience into your artifact.

Sample Final Outcome/Products:

Coffee table photography book
Travel guide
Song/performance
TedTALK
Movie
Speech in new language learned
Art critique or work of art
Comic book
Essay

10. Final Reflection

Your final reflection can be included in your journal or written separately. It is due at the same time as
your final outcome/product.
You will use the criteria for success that you developed at the beginning of the project, along with
the rubric you designed and evaluate your final outcome/product.
The final reflection should evaluate both the final outcome/product and your learning process.
You should also answer the following question: In what ways did this personal project impact my
trip experience?
The World is Your Classroom Assessment

Assessment philosophy assessment and evaluation of this project will be on going and will focus on
assessment for learning and assessment as learning. Assessment of learning will take place at the completion
of the project and may result in an extra-curricular grade in the appropriate course as per your Learning
Mentor. The goal of this project is not a good grade but rather the learning experience itself in an area of
personal interest connected with the trip.

Assessment for Learning: Assessment FOR learning enables teachers to use information about students
knowledge, understanding and skills to provide feedback about their learning and how to improve.

Process journals
Conferences with Learning Mentors and Inquiry Supervisors

Assessment as Learning: Assessment AS learning is the use of a task or an activity to allow students the
opportunity to use assessment to further their own learning. Self and peer assessments allow students to
reflect on their own learning and identify areas of strength and need and to make adjustments so that they
achieve deeper understanding.

Process journal reflections

Peer meetings

Assessment of Learning: Assessment OF learning uses evidence of student learning to assess student
achievement against learning goals. Since this is a personal project, your own goals and criteria for success
stated at the beginning of the project are very important. In conference with your Learning Mentor you will
assess your project and your learning to determine your grade.

Conference with Learning Mentor

Your SMART Goal
Your Criteria for success
Your Rubric
Process journal
Final outcome/product
Final Reflection

Assessment of learning should include an evaluation of the four project

objectives: Investigating, Planning, Collaborating and Reflecting.
Acknowledgments:

Many of the ideas for this project were inspired by the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program
Personal Project.

"International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme Personal Project Guide." (n.d.): Ann Arundel
County Public Schools. Web. 20 July 2017.

Middle Years Programme Projects guide. International Baccalaureate Organization (UK) Ltd, May,
2014.