Senior Capstone PBL
Senior Capstone PBL
Savannah Bollinger
At Fowler we believe that school should be a place where “Education is Experienced.” This motto is the foundation of what we call project based learning, otherwise known as PBL. PBL is not only a class that is now required at our school, but we also have a school-wide PBL week two times a year. The recent PBL was the senior capstone in which each of the seniors lead a team that they hand picked from the student body. The senior is essentially the CEO of their own corporation (team) and all the members on their team are the employees.
For this project we had three options to choose from: create and implement a community service project, collect and publish local folklore stories/legends, or find a way to increase the involvement of the community and students in events and activities. Every group chose one of the subjects and created a project using guidelines given to us. We had three days to make and perfect our projects. On the fourth day we presented to a panel of judges who critiqued and scored the projects. The top two scoring teams then presented their projects that evening in front of the community who then voted for the winner.
The seniors that made it to finals were Emie Carrillo and myself, Savannah Bollinger. The prize was a $500 scholarship to the senior leader and a pizza party for the team. My project was a Big Brother/Big Sister program that incorporated the high school and the grade school with activities throughout the year. My team members were Elijah Zortman, Odalis Castillo, Rolando Guzman, McKenzie Anderson Ryleigh Foster, and Lily Hankins.
Emie’s project was to promote Fowler school and peak the interest of people interested in a new school. For this she made radio ads, video ads and created an instagram for the school. Emie’s team did a fantastic job and her team was selected as the winner by the audience. Her team members consisted of Jarred Hart (back left), Dominic Vang (back middle left), Darien De La Torre (middle back), Alejandro Arenillas (middle back right) Felipe Granados-Cortez (back right), Jerry Vang (front left) and Emie Carrillo (front right). Congratulations to you all!
Our school focuses on students acquiring knowledge and skills that they can apply to real world problems. Seniors were able to learn a great many things in leading this project. It was a very difficult PBL but our team members showed exemplary work skills and ingenuity. We as the senior leaders had to make decisions and evaluate the work of the members in our groups and later tell them what evaluation we gave them. This made us be fair to our group members and honest as well. I believe this experience will help all of us as we prepare to enter the future with the skills necessary to be successful.