20% Project Presentations

My students are getting prepared for their first presentation about their 20% Project (details can be found here). Generally, my students have a good idea of what my expectations are for a presentation. In this case, they don’t because there is no “true” rubric. The students only need to demonstrate learning during the project. For some students this will be easy, for others, the process of documenting their work has escaped them.

Many of the students peppered me with questions today and probably ended up with more questions than answers. I wouldn’t give them a time limit, what they needed for a deliverable, or even if they needed a deliverable. My answer to most questions was take as much time as you need and use whatever deliverable necessary to demonstrate your learning. To be totally honest, I am not even sure what I want because this is the first time I have run a project this way.

In the end, I told many of the students that this is no different than any other project – I want to be impressed. This time I don’t want to be impressed with the deliverable. I want to be impressed by what they have learned using 20% of their class time to pursue something that they are interested in. I will post a follow-up after the presentations next week.