Design thinking in MYP personal project

What are students getting out of the personal project?

I enjoy tremendously in supporting students in completing their MYP personal projects. Through the process of completing a personal project, I feel the biggest growth that students develop is GRIT. The MYP personal project is essentially a design challenge that engages students in the process of ideation, prototyping and testing the viability of their ideas. This kind of experimental iteration allows students to exercise their agency, ownership, and entrepreneurship. It is an inspiring inquiry cycle that allows students to stretch their learning capacities and capabilities through the guidance of experienced adults. Throughout the process, not only their intellectual curiosity is satisfied, but they also become grittier. Students constantly encounter failures and they need to come up with solutions to fix their obstacles in order to make their project.

Meanwhile, they also need to learn how to manage their time in completing their other assignments and duties. It can be a very stressful process for some students. I want to highlight the perseverance and resilience that students have developed through this trial and error process in making their personal project, and this is not something that can be measured quantitatively. We need to help them to recognize and celebrate their potential. It is paramount that we guide them to understand how becoming grittier can help them succeed later in their life.     

How can we involve them and celebrate their success?

After finishing making their projects, students showcase their project/outcome in the MYP personal project exhibition. It is an opportunity for them to share their learning process and tell their stories. It is a story that tells how they develop courage, embrace vulnerability, make connections and seek meaning. All supervisors knew it was far more than just completing a product or achieving an outcome. I want to scaffold students to explain the process they go through in detail when they share their projects with the audience in the exhibition. When the audience walks away, they will appreciate students’ perseverance and recognize their bravery in completing their project. 

2015-16

Three years ago, when I was the personal project coordinator, I asked my students, “How are you going to tell your story in the exhibition?” They did not quite understand what I meant. In the previous years, students presented their project in the exhibition and often, the focus was on the product rather than the process. Students introduced what they made, but they did not always market their story and connect with the audience emotionally. 

At KIS, our vision is inspiring individuals. Our aim is to inspire individuals, while we hope that our students and other community members, in return, can go out into the world and inspire others. I feel the exhibition is a perfect opportunity for students to inform, educate and/or inspire the audience. To help students visualize how to share their story more effectively, I share Jake Andraka’s TED talk with students (00:00-01:54).     

We focused on the first two minutes of his storytelling and examined how Jack shared his project with the audience. So, viola! Students in that year presented their story in TED talk style, and everyone curated their story for a two-minute talk or less. Some students did not feel comfortable talking on the stage. They made a video for sharing their project. The audience responded positively, and students felt so proud of themselves. I reflected on the way I supported students. Students were more actively involved with the planning, but I knew there was not enough agency, choice, and voice.

2016-17

The first year I did not really know what I was doing. I only knew that I would like to create an opportunity for students to inspire others and give the audience insight into the personal project process. The second year, I asked the students again, “How will you tell your story?” Students who had attended the previous exhibition and this cohort did not want to give a speech. So they organized themselves into different committees and created job descriptions to plan for their exhibition. I was genuinely amazed. Then I asked them how they were going to advertise the event. They created a promotional poster and a 6-word memoir video to invite people to visit their exhibition. Next, we discussed how the exhibition should be organized and how the audience might interact with the presenters and the exhibition space. Students took one step further and came up with an exhibition theme, accompanying a floor plan and a brochure to introduce the presenters. They also selected MCs to host their own events and curated a music playlist for the exhibition. I reminded them that a good exhibition requires rehearsals. They wrote key ideas about what they wanted to share with the audience and they rehearsed with each other a couple of times before the exhibition. It was an excellent exhibition and students developed ownership of this event. Working with this group of students, I experienced the power of providing students choice and voice, which are the two important ingredients to develop student agency and therefore develop inspiring individuals.  

Here are some exhibition planning artifacts of the 2016-17 class.  

2017-18

Having seen the great exemplar, students followed a similar process and formed their task force teams. The theme that students decided on was Metro. They used different subway lines to represent six different global contexts. Several artists and designers in this chord and they even decided the color scheme for their exhibition. The video students made was excellent and captured the essence of the personal project. The audience was so impressed and one of the parents who worked for Dior awarded internship opportunities to two students! 

2018-19

Students continued to be inspired. The theme students decided on was Monopoly. Students chose the Monopoly theme because they felt the personal project itself is a game of wit and tack and filled with opportunities popping up left and right. Sometimes, it also felt like being in jail. The teams had worked together to plan and curate their exhibition by working out the following: 

• Music playlist
• Monoproject logo
• Floor plan
• Group equipment & material request
• MCs & scripts
• Advertising poster
• Exhibition brochures
• QR codes for their products
• Introduction video ​

Individually, students also created a poster to explain their project. We discussed what a good poster look like and how we could use the poster to engage with the audience. 

I feel compelled to document this journey that I have gone through with my students and look forward to working with the young adults to do their projects and celebrate their achievements by involving them in planning and curating their exhibition. I view them as designers and I am always amazed at what they produce. I told my students that learning does not stop after completing their personal project. They are encouraged to approach problems and projects by utilizing design thinking as a strategy for innovation. The process of creating a project is messy and starts with stories. Students create their narrative and share how they develop courage, embrace vulnerability, make connections, and seek meaning throughout the process. This type of learning can prepare them for life, but not just for work. I created this diagram to highlight the storytelling process and emphasize that design thinking is like an infinity loop, not a straight line, as there is continuity and a mindset for life.