Исследуем. Проектируем. Предлагаем

Teachers . Their way of giving the material to students and how they treat students are the most common issues. But the core is much deeper. Teaching is an extremely hard job and it consists of a number of details, and each one has to be taken into account during a job interview. I define a teacher as a person who is a scientist and a psychologist at the same time. Most teachers usually forget about the psychological part of their job and that is a serious thing. I have interviewed my acquaintances, looked through the internet and defined 6 main qualities of a “PERFECT” teacher.

1. A great teacher respects students. In a great teacher’s classroom, each person’s ideas and opinions are valued.

2. A great teacher is caring. This person is approachable, not only to students, but to everyone in school. This is the teacher who students know they can approach with any problems or concerns at any time or even to share a funny story.

3. A great teacher sets high expectations for all students. This one is actually very important, teachers make 70% of students' motivation for learning, so if a teacher disvalues a student, the latter is likely to give it up. Just trust me. As a student I assure you that by misjudging kids you only make them feel hopeless.

4. A great teacher has his own love of learning and inspires students with his passion for education and for the course material.

5. A great teacher is moderately strict. Teachers like that see the border between discipline and tyranny.

6. A great teacher is a human and understands that you are too. They are capable of showing that they are human beings just like us, and they get it when a student has some struggles.

7. So now we have designated 6 traits of a great teacher, but teachers are not born with these characteristics. To get them they study (on special courses or online) to be a psychologist. And if tutors in the school that you have chosen have these qualities, you have definitely made the right choice.

BOOKLET IN FACT:

Do’s and Don’t’s while choosing college:

DON’T’S:

Rely on reputation . Just because it is a “highly-ranked”, “prestigious” or a “designer” school does not mean it is the right school for you. Do not always assume that the difficulty of getting into the school equates to the quality of education you will receive. Some students need smaller classes and more one-on-one interaction to thrive in a learning environment.

Be a follower . Following a boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend to the college of their choice may seem like a good idea at the time because you want to be near them, but this may mislead you.

Obey Pushy parents . Letting your parents decide which college is right for you or being forced by your parents to attend a certain school is not a good idea. You need to think about what you want to obtain from a college. After all, you are the one attending the school.

Choose a major for the wrong reasons .

Along the same lines, make sure you do not choose a major for the wrong reasons. Some students decide to be a doctor or a lawyer just because it “sounds good” or prestigious, or because it suggests a wealthy future.

Be afraid to make mistakes.

If you make a mistake, embrace it and learn from it. What is a little downfall to a lifetime of success?

DO’S:

Consider Professional orientation . Choose a college which can offer you the widest area in your profile.

Count qualities of innovative schools;

• Educational (Learning), Facilities (Laboratories, libraries, halls, campus, technology, accommodation/meals)

• New Learning Methods and PHILOSOPHY (Problem method, method of project training, global contexts)

• Socializing (Teamwork, collaborations, etc.)

Count teachers as a reflection of school’s genuine quality

• Teachers are considered very important. Their way of giving the material to students and how they treat students are the most common issues. Every teacher SHOULD study for at least five years before they can teach.

Do your research

Explore and investigate as deep as you can, you never know too much about an institution you are going to enter. This knowledge will only help you.

Meet with academic advisors

Once you are enrolled at a college or university, you can make use of excellent resources like academic advisors (also called college counselors).

Conclusion

While working on this project I explored a lot of different materials and underlined everything most important and useful. I took all the significant points and ultimately created a booklet. I hope that the information from this booklet will help students define THEIR perfect college/school/university.

Subsequently, I am going to work on this project and make another booklet which will give more detailed information on the topic and will give examples of institutions to choose.

Литература

1. Андерсон К. TED talks. Слова меняют мир. Первое официальное руководство по публичным выступлениям. М., 2016.

2. An article from the site “Her Campus”. URL: https://hercampus.com/high-school/7-things-not-consider-when-deciding-where-apply-college (дата обращения: 20.02.2018).

3. Finnish school site. URL: https://www.hel.fi/peruskoulut/fi/koulut/ressu-comprehensive-school/ (дата обращения: 20.02.2018).

Человек ХХI века
The Human of the 21^st century

Штыркова Екатерина

ГБОУ города Москвы «Школа № 1409»

Руководитель:

Козаева Ада Зауровна, учитель английского языка

Investigating

Research process

Research process starts with the idea that gives the possibility to move forward. A project that is really significant for you starts with a hobby or something new. It will take a lot of time even to think about making something bigger, such as sharing your experience with other people, proposing your discovery to the whole world. Research for me is being open-minded. While doing an IB project a student must not forget that the world is big and it is critically important to consider different opinions and sources, sometimes conflicting with each other. It makes research even more interesting! The process that must be shown has its formal planning from developing a hypothesis to reflecting.

Introducing my project

My personal project is called “The Human of the 21^st century”. I think that it is a significant topic nowadays because most people are worried about self-development and they have definitely asked themselves the following question at least once: who can be called a modern person and what qualities must this person have? I have also done a lot of research works using IB profile. I find it inspiring and actual and I have not found anything yet which better reflects these qualities vital nowadays! I hope that my research can help somebody to think more deeply about his or her life and about the life of a modern person and to learn something new. Apart from acquiring new skills for myself, I have also learnt how to work with criteria and to meet the standards of format.

The hypothesis is “The human of the 21st century must be communicative, open-minded, balanced, honest and knowledgeable to correspond to the profile of a modern person”.

My global context is “Personal and cultural expression” because I study creativity and appreciation. I have also learnt much about education and educational activities in my project. I am trying to inspire people to discover original ideas and I am using a format of interview in order to show the reflections and advice of different specialists, different beliefs and values.

Personal interest and learning about myself through my personal project

This project interests me a lot because I have chosen a theme which seems not ordinary to me. It gives a lot of possibilities to do something new that I have never done before and improve something I already know. I feel I am a person of the 21^st century and I want to become a real IB student with all these qualities and conditions, a successful and healthy person. While researching and reflecting I have developed something new in myself, which encourages me to continue my self-development.

What I am seeking to understand

In my research it is important for me to develop and explore something new, analyze a lot of information and points of view. I am also trying to understand the modern mechanism of personal success. I use as many sources as I can: books, internet, experience of my friends, advisors, teachers and mine.

The topic and its relation

“The Human of the 21st century” is the topic of my project and the question is “what are the must-have skills of a modern man?”

I have my personal interest because while working I improve myself in many spheres, such as a psychologist, a creator, a communicator and so on.

Today everybody is worried about mental health and success. The point is that there is not only one meaning of the phrase “a modern man”. The man can be modern with his personal qualities, modern as just a human living today, modern with his achievements, with his developing environment. Some of these meanings are more generalizing and some are connected to more narrow areas.

The global context

Identities and relationships can be also called socialization. It is a base of our century and also my main global context. At the beginning of my research I studied interdisciplinary communications and their influence on education. The context made me think more widely.

My specific knowledge

My prior learning is about interdisciplinary communications and education, especially about the one which International Baccalaureate program proposes us. Being encouraged by my supervisor to study more on IB learner profile, I have learned a lot of new information about “integrity and honesty” with which IB students strive to act and have made my learning experience the part of my product.

Listening to the teachers’ opinions, noticing some common topics and components is what I have done. I have also developed interest in psychology. I have read some famous books, such as “How to stop worrying and start living”, “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie, “The 7 habits of highly Effective people” by Stephen Covey and watched some TV shows.

The research

Thanks to one of the emerging technologies’ creation, the World Wide Web, I have got as many sources as I wish. I have access to a great amount of topics about almost everything happening on our planet, science researches and books, devoted to different themes.

Also I know that I must not believe everything I see and hear as everybody can make a mistake. I am always striving to use my critical thinking. Especially, while surfing the internet, I try to check and verify the information which I take into account. Extracting the right and relevant information from non-terminating sources is the must-have skill for a researcher.

Doing a research means receiving new ideas and seeing the problem from many points of view, which develops project in many ways. The challenge is to stick to the main idea but also evolve it.

I try to make record of the most useful information in my process journal. There are already some extracts, brainstorming activities and ideas which can be shared with others and used in report.

The challenge

The greatest challenge was dealing with all data I had at the end of analyzing. Knowing how to make sense of a great amount of information and staying focused are essential components of any research. Sometimes internet extract refers to the wrong topic or contains too much irrelevant facts. The problem of Information overload can be solved by filtering and carrying out only what I really need. It makes the brain work really hard.

Planning

My criteria

I had some conversations on the topic of IB criteria with my supervisor and also read some information about it. It is possible even to find some videos on YouTube about students’ personal projects all over the world. For me it was an interesting and motivating experience. I was attracted to the subject of my future product and its information value. I planned some themes for the videos, decided on the format. While working with my school TV channel, I realized that just speaking with a camera is not the way people like it and not the way it needs to be in order to become an interesting short movie. I have also used the data from criteria C which is taking action.

As for the quality of the product, it is not easy to record sound at home. I have tried it many ways and used some programs to make it better, and I hope it is OK now.

The development process and the process journal

I used my process journal to record my ideas, decisions, feelings as well as the reflections I got in the process. For example, I have written a lot on the topic of technical part. I am so concerned about it because for a video it is the most important. The movie can be the greatest in the world with the information and sense, but no one will have interest if the quality is not high enough. So, I thought I needed to include it in my journal in order to show how I had to deal with some problems. I reflected a lot, including the interview part. It is not so hard to speak with classmates. It is also not scary at all to question adults, even if it is a teacher or the president of the conference. But that is only because I have already done it many times with my school channel. Every time I am working, I understand how great it is to have a background of something you are going to do yourself, with knowledge on this work given by teachers. In my journal the events which I used as info-occasions are included and I also wrote the plans of interviewing and recording live video.

It was a great conundrum for me to choose a camera. I made my first video with my mentor. So, I took my father’s professional camera with a better quality and the point is that I was not able to work with it without my father’s assistance, as the camera was so heavy that it was really difficult even to carry it. Afterwards I realized that it would be more honest for me to do everything by myself and that was how I continued my work. I took another smaller camera with 1080p resolution. It was also a good one.

Timeline

The planning process is based on self-management as it is one of the requirements. While reading books about communication and improving yourself, I have also read a book of the German financial consultant Bodo Schäfer “The art of time management”. I used some tips from it to make my research and the whole work better. I created a special schedule-timeline where I am writing my plans, meetings with my advisors, planning my monthly proceeding with the final product and a series of videos. To do everything right in time without excuses was the main time-management problem.

In my journal the events which I used as info-occasions are included and I also wrote the plans of interviewing and recording live videos. Sometimes I had to change my plans, adapt to circumstances. As a result, my work developed my critical thinking and communication in many ways. However, it made me more responsible for my time and actions.

Taking action

The finished product

In my videos I pay a lot of attention to opinions of people from different spheres about what made them who they are and what helped them to achieve something. For example, in the video about CFMUNESCO conference I interviewed a boy who was marked as the best delegate of our Red Cross’ Committee. According to his words, practice and background are the most important factors. In my opinion, it is rather interesting to speak with somebody who is better than you in some spheres and learn from their experience. My videos are related to my global context in terms of qualities, experiences, such communities as school and events as a conference or a lesson. It meets my criteria and the further I went, the better the quality was because of my experience.

Improving and challenges

My personal goal is not only to present my project and make videos, but also to learn and improve myself. Discovering and expressing ideas is the key part of my “media-research”. I also have my interviewing-research as the main part. Working with a camera requires a lot of experience. Editing took plenty of time to practice. I chose the camera and tripod for it which are rather lightweight and because of it are not difficult to carry by myself. I chose a format which, in my personal opinion, is not boring. While editing I changed scenes to make videos more active. Working with sound is more difficult than I thought at the beginning. In a professional studio it is not a problem to record something adequately, but doing it in your flat needs a long preparation and plenty of dupes only because I have neighbors who can make some noise. There are also so many editing programs, but I used “Pinnacle studio 20” from the beginning. At first I wanted the one which was less complicated, but then I realized that a professional program gives lots of material to use and, even in the future, it still will be a great help in work, for example, to switch from one scene to another using an original transition.

The great challenge for me was standing with my camera for two hours on CFMUNESCO conference trying to remember the process and the main ideas to make editing faster and more productively. Interviewing was more challenging because of the critical thinking while communicating and trying to be like a professional. My research gave me all the ideas for my product. In some of the final parts of “the serial”, I decided to return to the idea of International Baccalaureate. So, I asked my teachers if I could go to the IB lessons and shoot a video. Well, they agreed, so I am working on my short movie about MYP right now and, in fact, I want this one to be the best, showing everything I have learned about working with equipment by myself for more than one year.