Autonomous Learning to Graduate?
So once again I have been out on the Web reading everything I can get my eyes on. Lately I have become interested in many high schools that are implementing an individual project before students are able to graduate. What? Autonomous learning to graduate???
The districts that I have read about that are implementing this major independent project require students to integrate various "content" area learning/curriculum into their projects. Some students do some what of an intership/apprenticeship then create a presentation to share their observations, data, questions and insights to what they discovered. Teachers were available to answer questions, share ideas, brainstorm, help problem solve etc.
I am thinking about integrating this idea into my classroom. I would have each student do an independent project using Spanish to complete the class.
I could give them pretty much complete autonomy and just be there to help out when they need some guideness or assistance. I would need to create a rubric that I could use, but I think it is a fun idea to think about. Students could use Spanish to create a bilingual brochure for something, to create a bilingual webpage, to creat our own AHS Drumbeat in a bilingual format?
What are some of your thoughts? Should we have an independent learning project be a graduation requirement???