Please be advised that this post refers to the old Personal Project and is not to be used for the updated Personal Project.
For more support on how to implement the new Personal Project we have written a 2nd Edition Hodder Skills for Success: Personal Project book. You can find it on the Hodder Education webpage (eBook included), Amazon and Book Depository.
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Welcome to the GSLC Personal Project guide. This post contains a step-by-step guide to how we provide an offline guide to the the completion of the Personal Project at Good Shepherd Lutheran College in Darwin, Australia. We have uploaded examples along the way from former Good Shepherd Lutheran College Personal Project students.
The guide presented here is an unpacking of the MYP project guides (2014) and MYP: From principles into practice (2014).
We wish you all the best as you embark on this journey that will consolidate your International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme learning and prepare you for the further rigours of learning at Good Shepherd Lutheran College and life beyond your schooling years.
Process Journal
Before you commence on your Personal Project, you firstly need to organise a process journal. The format of the process journal is completely up to you. You may use a blog, YouTube channel, iBook, Trello page, Word doc, OneNote book, visual art diary, personalised Personal Project hashtag on a variety of social media, exercise book, etc. It is entirely up to you. You simply must ensure that you back up your process journal continuously – this is an important responsibility that you must fulfil.
Your process journal is a place where you record your thoughts, ideas, problem solving, reflections, responses to questions, inquiry questions, research, images, inspirations, photos/videos of progress, interviews … basically every aspect of your community project. Your peers, family, friends, teachers or any other interested person should be able to have a very clear understanding of your service learning journey simply by reading your process journal.
Supervisors
Each Personal Project student will receive a teacher who will serve as a supervisor throughout the Personal Project journey.
The role of your supervisor is to firstly support you throughout our Personal Project journey. This includes the following as outlined by the IB:
- ensure the chosen MYP project topic satisfies appropriate legal and ethical standards with regard to health and safety, confidentiality, human rights, animal welfare and environmental issues
- provide guidance to students in the process and completion of the project
- confirm the authenticity of the work submitted
- assess the MYP project using the Personal Project criteria
- participate in the standardisation of assessment processes established by the school.
It is your responsibility to book regular meetings with your supervisor to share the journey of your Personal Project and to seek feedback. It is solely your responsibility to take the initiative and maintain regular contact with your supervisor.
Enjoy the process of getting to know your supervisor.
Investigating
Before you get started on your Personal Project, start by keeping two words at the forefront of your mind: Visible Thinking. All your thinking, problem solving, creative response, everything, and we mean EVERYTHING for your Community Project must be documented in your Process Journal. A question to keep in the forefront of your mind is, how am I making my thinking visible?
In this part of Investigating you will:
i. define a clear and highly challenging goal and context for the project, based on personal interests.
Step 1: For the past three to four years of your experience as a student of Good Shepherd Lutheran College you will have seen several Personal Project Exhibitions. Now that is is your turn to complete your own Personal Project place into a mind map some of the ideas you have had for your own Personal Project. Mind map your reflections, thoughts, ideas, etc.
Step 2: Once you have completed your mind map, begin to further develop your goal by creating 5W1H questions. What do I want to create for the product / outcome? When do I need to have this product / outcome completed and is this timeframe achievable? Why do I want to create this product / outcome? Who can I have as a support and mentor as I create my product / outcome? Where can my product / outcome have the most impact? How will I create my product / outcome?
Step 3: Now that you have a general idea of what you want to create for your Personal Project, you need to identify a Global Context for your product / outcome. The Global Contexts help you answer the following questions:
- why am I creating this particular product / outcome?
- why is my product / outcome important for not just me, but others also?
- how does creating this product / outcome help me develop as a more internationally minded global citizen?
- why should myself and others care about the product / outcome I am creating?
In order to identify the most relevant and purposeful global context for your Personal Project you need to explore the possibilities of all six of the global contexts. Using our Global Context Lens model (below), place your developing goal at the centre, what you will create for a product / outcome. Thinking deeply through the lens of each of the six global contexts, explore how your Personal Project goal can be extended by each of these global contexts. Remember you refine your Personal Project goal through the lens of the global context you have chosen, so make sure that you explore all the possible options.
Questions to ask as you begin to develop your goal:
- how does this global context give my Personal Project a greater sense of purpose?
- how does this global context help others understand just how important my Personal Project is?
- how does this global context cause others to care about my project?
Once you have chosen your global context you can begin the next stage of defining your goal.
Step 4: The next step of your Investigating is to articulate just how your choice of Personal Project is based on personal interest. We always learn best when what we are inquiring into is important to us.
In your process journals explain how your Personal Project is based on a personal interest. You can refer to past experiences of yourself or friend or member of your family. This could also stem from your passion for literature, languages, sport, hobbies, etc. Or your interest can simply be something you have heard about via social media, the news, conversations, etc.
Step 5: This step requires you to synthesize steps 1, 2 and 3, to ensure that your goal is highly challenging and fully integrates both your personal interests and the global context you have chosen. Using the template below as a guide, rule up a similar chart in your process journal. This simple activity is designed to help you ensure that your Personal Project goal is highly challenging. By articulating how you will extend from a basic goal to a highly challenging goal will help you further develop your goal.
In the next part of Investigating, you will:
ii. identify prior learning and subject-specific knowledge, that is consistently highly relevant to the project.
Step 1: Now that you have developed a rigorous and challenging goal that is clearly embedded within a global context, you need to identify prior learning and subject specific knowledge that will help you achieve your goal. Think about the skills and knowledge you already have from clubs, training, independent research and the skills and essential elements of what you have learnt in your MYP subjects and Christian Studies that will contribute to the completion of your Personal Project.
Using the template below as a guide, rule up similar charts in your process journal. This simple activity is designed to help you articulate the specific learning and knowledge that will consistently help you complete your Personal Project. Think deeply about this, reflect on your learning, go through old exercise books and documents.
Prior learning
Subject-specific knowledge
In this next part of Investigating, you will:
iii. demonstrate excellent research skills.
Although you will do the bulk of your research within this part of your Personal Project, you will continue to research throughout the entire project, so make sure you consistently document and reference your sources and research in your process journal throughout the process.
Step 1: Using the research model below, you need to begin your research and ensure that you document all your research in your process journal. Make sure you research a wide variety of primary and secondary sources.
Step 2: Our world is soaked in information, however, not all of this information is accurate. For each source that you have researched, you need to evaluate these sources using the following evaluation skills:
Authority – who is responsible for presenting this information?
- who has written or provided this information and can you check their qualifications?
- is the information from an expert in this area?
Accuracy – is the information accurate, can it be proven and verified?
- is the information correct?
- can you check the accuracy of information through links, footnotes and bibliography?
Objectivity – is the information based on facts, things you can observe or based more on opinions and emotions? Is it from just one point-of-view?
- is there personal bias?
- can you verify that facts, statistics and links to sources are accurate and truthful?
Currency – how old is the information and is this important?
- has the author(s) provided a date for when the information was written?
- has the information been revised or updated, and if so, when?
Make sure you consistently document your research and evaluation throughout the entire Personal Project. Research is such a powerful way to gain a deeper understanding of each other, our world and how we can innovate and make a positive difference.
In this next part of Investigating, you will:
iv. clarify your goal to ensure that it is achievable.
After extensive research you may have found that your goal has developed even further – this is great, it shows that you are transferring your research to your goal and ensuring that your product / outcome is even more achievable and rigorous. If your goal has remained the same, that is fine. Remember, the key words here are rigorous and highly challenging. You want to push yourself even further and develop as a learner.
Using the SMART goal model, wrap up your initial investigating to ensure that your goal is: Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-based.
Reflecting on Investigating
The Personal Project allows you to demonstrate your Approaches to learning (ATL) skills – skills that you need in order to positively contribute to the colourful world in which live – your understanding of how a global context provide greater clarity, depth and purpose to our learning and also how you have developed as an IB Learner.
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you have strengthened your ATL skills.
Communication skills:
- How have I developed as a Communicator?
- Through my primary and secondary source research has my ability to exchange thoughts, messages and information through interacting with others improved?
- Has my ability to read, write and use language effectively helped me gather information and communicate this to others?
Social skills:
- How have I developed as a collaborative learner?
- Has my ability to collaborate with others improved?
Self-management skills:
- How have my organisation skills developed?
- How have I been able to develop the way in which I manage my state of mind? Am I more resilient? Can I better manage my emotions?
- How have I developed as a reflective learner?
Research skills:
- How have I developed as a researcher?
- How has my ability to find, interpret, judge and create information improved?
- How have my technology and media skills developed to use and create ideas and information?
Thinking skills:
- How have my critical thinking skills developed? Am I able to analyse and evaluate issues and ideas in a more thorough manner?
- How have my creative thinking skills developed? Am I able to generate new ideas and consider new perspective?
- How have my transfer skills developed? How is my ability to transfer primary and secondary research, classroom learning and “real-life” learning to my product/outcome?
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you have greater understanding of how the global context you have chosen is being woven throughout your Personal Project.
- how is the global context I have chosen given my Personal Project a greater sense of purpose?
- how is the global context I have chosen helping others understand just how important my Personal Project is?
- how is the global context causing others to care about my project?
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you are further developing as an IB learner throughout your Personal Project journey.
Select 2 – 3 of the Learner Profile attributes and reflect on how you have developed these attributes through your Investigating. Articulate just how and why you have developed these attributes in your process journal.
Planning
As you continue developing our Personal Project, ensure you keep two words at the forefront of your mind: Visible Thinking. All your thinking, problem solving, creative response, everything, and we mean EVERYTHING for your Personal Project must be documented in your Process Journal. A question to keep in the forefront of your mind is, how am I making my thinking visible?
In this part of Planning you will:
i. develop substantial, appropriate and rigorous criteria for the product / outcome.
Now that you have set your goal, defined the global context for your project and engaged in extensive research – you need to transfer this into criteria for success for your product / outcome.
In order to develop criteria for your product / outcome you need to develop a set of specifications for your product / outcome.
When creating your specifications ask yourself the following questions:
- How will I know when I have achieved my goal?
- How can I judge the quality of my product/outcome?
- How will I know that I have effectively transferred my prior learning and subject-specific knowledge?
- How will I know that I have effectively represented the global context I have chosen through my product / outcome?
You need to create a minimum of eight rigorous specifications for your criteria.
When creating your specifications you can consider the following options:
When you have your list of specifications you need to transfer this to criteria for success by thinking deeply about what each specification will look like at the varying degrees of success. In your process journal draw up the following criteria for success layout. This similar to all the assessment task sheets that you have received from all your MYP teachers throughout your years at Good Shepherd Lutheran College.
Criteria for success:
Thinking deeply about the quality of your product / outcome at an excellent 7 – 8 level, a substantial 5 – 6 level, an adequate 3 – 4 level and a limited 1 – 2 level. Explain very clearly just what you will be looking for in each of these bands, because when you reach the Reflecting criteria you will need to self-assess your product / outcome against the criteria for success that you have created and you will need to justify each decision.
In this part of Planning you will:
ii. present a detailed and accurate plan and record of the development process of the project.
Drawing together your Investigating and your criteria for success, you now need to create a detailed and accurate plan for the creation of your product / outcome and for the completion of your Personal Project. What you create in this section of our Personal Project inquiry cycle will need to be continually reflected on in your process journal.
It is essential that you create an achievable plan for your Personal Project. This requires you to forward plan and take into account the timeframe, resources and materials that you need in order to create the product / outcome.
To do this you need to create a Gantt Chart. A Gantt Chart is simply a useful way to plan for a large project, hence, planning for your Personal Project. As we have such a large array of devices at Good Shepherd Lutheran College, you can choose the format you wish to create this in. It can even be using good old pen and paper.
Simply place on the left column all the steps that need to be completed in order to create your product / outcome and for the completion of the Personal Project. Then along the top, place your timeframe. You can use school weeks or specific dates – the choice is up to you. As you take action you simply colour in the tabs once you have completed each step.
Here is an example of a Gantt Chart for the Community Project that our Year 8’s participate in:
As you take action and create your Personal Project, ensure that you reflect on each section of your Gantt Chart. Were you able to follow each step in the planned order? What changes needed to be made? What adjustments have you made? How have you used this planning chart to help you remain focussed on the completion of the Personal Project? What have you added to your Gantt Chart as a result of changes you have made?
In this part of Planning you will show how you:
iii. demonstrate excellent self-management skills.
This part of your Personal Project is embedded throughout each step of the project. Self-management skills are ways of organising the actual project as well as organising our state of mind.
In your process journals, ensure you document and make very visible the ways in which you have done the following. Remember to include examples and scenarios in order to make your thinking just that much more visible.
Organisation skills:
- meet deadlines
- stick to your goals
- make plans that are logically and sequentially efficient
- maintain your process journal with regular updates
- select and use technology effectively and productively.
Affective skills:
- mindfulness – practise strategies to overcome distractions and maintain mental focus
- perseverance – demonstrate persistence and perseverance and help others demonstrate persistence and persererance
- self-motivation – practice analysing and attributing causes for failure and practise positive thinking.
Reflection skills:
- develop new skills, techniques and strategies for effective learning
- keep a journal to record reflections
- identify strengths and weaknesses of personal learning strategies (self-assessment).
In your process journal, document your reflection of your self-management. Be brutally honest – managing our state of mind is often one of the trickiest things to do. The more we articulate this and work on the best ways to manage of our state of mind, the more we help ourselves and others.
Reflecting on Planning
The Personal Project allows you to demonstrate your Approaches to learning (ATL) skills – skills that you need in order to positively contribute to the colourful world in which live – your understanding of how a global context provide greater clarity, depth and purpose to our learning and also how you have developed as an IB Learner.
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you have strengthened your ATL skills.
Communication skills:
- How have I developed as a Communicator?
- Through my primary and secondary source research has my ability to exchange thoughts, messages and information through interacting with others improved?
- Has my ability to read, write and use language effectively helped me gather information and communicate this to others?
Social skills:
- How have I developed as a collaborative learner?
- Has my ability to collaborate with others improved?
Self-management skills:
- How have my organisation skills developed?
- How have I been able to develop the way in which I manage my state of mind? Am I more resilient? Can I better manage my emotions?
- How have I developed as a reflective learner?
Research skills:
- How have I developed as a researcher?
- How has my ability to find, interpret, judge and create information improved?
- How have my technology and media skills developed to use and create ideas and information?
Thinking skills:
- How have my critical thinking skills developed? Am I able to analyse and evaluate issues and ideas in a more thorough manner?
- How have my creative thinking skills developed? Am I able to generate new ideas and consider new perspective?
- How have my transfer skills developed? How is my ability to transfer primary and secondary research, classroom learning and “real-life” learning to my product/outcome?
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you have greater understanding of how the global context you have chosen is being woven throughout your Personal Project.
- how is the global context I have chosen given my Personal Project a greater sense of purpose?
- how is the global context I have chosen helping others understand just how important my Personal Project is?
- how is the global context causing others to care about my project?
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you are further developing as an IB learner throughout your Personal Project journey.
Select 2 – 3 of the Learner Profile attributes and reflect on how you have developed these attributes through your Investigating. Articulate just how and why you have developed these attributes in your process journal.
Taking Action
As you take action and implement / create your Personal Project, ensure you keep two words at the forefront of your mind: Visible Thinking. All your thinking, problem solving, creative response, everything, and we mean EVERYTHING for your Personal Project must be documented in your Process Journal. A question to keep in the forefront of your mind is, how am I making my thinking visible?
In this part of Taking Action you will:
i. create an excellent product / outcome in response to the goal, global context and criteria.
Drawing together your Investigating and your Planning you now need to put this into action and actually create your Personal Project product / outcome.
Your process journal should by now be becoming quite full with all your thinking made visible. Within this section it should become even more filled with photographs, screenshots, reflections, annotations, reflection and just all things that capture the process of creating your product / outcome. Make sure you consistently refer to your criteria for success to ensure that your product / outcome is at the best quality possible.
In this part of Taking Action you will:
ii. demonstrate excellent thinking skills.
As you place into action your proposal for action to serve your community you need to be making your thinking very visible in your process journal.
The following questions will help you articulate your thinking skills:
- how is your understanding your the topic of your product / outcome developing? (For e.g., if you are creating a Hang, how is your understanding of musical instrument creation and welding developing?)
- are you able to sufficiently help others?
- what obstacles have you encountered?
- how have you solved problems?
- how have you overcome obstacles?
- how have you analysed and evaluated issues and ideas?
- how have you generated novel ideas and considered new perspectives?
- how have you taken feedback on board and incorporated this to the creation of your product / outcome?
- how have you developed flexible thinking strategies by playing devils advocate surrounding the ethical impact of your product / outcome?
- how have you employed your prior learning in the creation of your product / outcome?
- how you have used your subject-specific knowledge and skills in multiple contexts?
Make sure these are documented in your process journal – remember, the process journal is your means of communicating and making your thinking visible, so we are not worried about the appearance of this. Draw pictures, jot down inspirational quotes, create diagrams, glue printed images and articles in – show the world the process of service as action.
In this part of Taking Action you will:
iii. demonstrate excellent communication and social skills.
The following questions will help you articulate your communication and social skills:
- how have you developed a deeper sense of empathy?
- how have you used intercultural understanding?
- how have you managed to resolve conflict, and work collaboratively with others?
- how have you taken responsibility for your actions?
- how have you encouraged others to contribute to your Personal Project?
- how have you advocated for other’s rights and needs?
- how have you exercised leadership?
- how have you given and received meaningful feedback?
- how have you negotiated ideas and knowledge with others?
- how have you organised and depicted information logically?
- how have you made inferences and drawn conclusions?
- how have you worked effectively with your supervisor and taken their ideas on board?
- how have you worked effectively with members of the community who are your mentors throughout this project?
Make sure these are documented in your process journal – remember, the process journal is your means of communicating and making your thinking visible, so we are not worried about the appearance of this. Draw pictures, jot down inspirational quotes, create diagrams, glue printed images and articles in – show the world the process of service as action.
Reflecting on Taking Action
The Personal Project allows you to demonstrate your Approaches to learning (ATL) skills – skills that you need in order to positively contribute to the colourful world in which live – your understanding of how a global context provide greater clarity, depth and purpose to our learning and also how you have developed as an IB Learner.
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you have strengthened your ATL skills.
Communication skills:
- How have I developed as a Communicator?
- Through my primary and secondary source research has my ability to exchange thoughts, messages and information through interacting with others improved?
- Has my ability to read, write and use language effectively helped me gather information and communicate this to others?
Social skills:
- How have I developed as a collaborative learner?
- Has my ability to collaborate with others improved?
Self-management skills:
- How have my organisation skills developed?
- How have I been able to develop the way in which I manage my state of mind? Am I more resilient? Can I better manage my emotions?
- How have I developed as a reflective learner?
Research skills:
- How have I developed as a researcher?
- How has my ability to find, interpret, judge and create information improved?
- How have my technology and media skills developed to use and create ideas and information?
Thinking skills:
- How have my critical thinking skills developed? Am I able to analyse and evaluate issues and ideas in a more thorough manner?
- How have my creative thinking skills developed? Am I able to generate new ideas and consider new perspective?
- How have my transfer skills developed? How is my ability to transfer primary and secondary research, classroom learning and “real-life” learning to my product/outcome?
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you have greater understanding of how the global context you have chosen is being woven throughout your Personal Project.
- how is the global context I have chosen given my Personal Project a greater sense of purpose?
- how is the global context I have chosen helping others understand just how important my Personal Project is?
- how is the global context causing others to care about my project?
Take some time to pause and in your process journal, reflect on how you are further developing as an IB learner throughout your Personal Project journey.
Select 2 – 3 of the Learner Profile attributes and reflect on how you have developed these attributes through your Investigating. Articulate just how and why you have developed these attributes in your process journal.
Reflecting
As you sit back and reflect on your Personal Project, ensure you keep two words at the forefront of your mind: Visible Thinking. All your thinking, problem solving, creative response, everything, and we mean EVERYTHING for your Personal Project must be documented in your Process Journal. A question to keep in the forefront of your mind is, how am I making my thinking visible?
In this part of Reflecting you will:
i. present an excellent evaluation of the quality of the product / outcome against your criteria.
Flick or scroll back through your process journal to your criteria for success rubric. You need to evaluate the success of your Personal Project product / outcome by giving yourself a grade against each criteria.
In your process journal you need to explain just why you have given yourself the grade you have chosen. If the grade you have given it not an 8, explain how you could improve your project in order to achieve the top marks. If you have given yourself an 8, that is great, explain why. Remember, as MYP students you always fully justify your decisions because this helps you continuously strive to be an effective communicator.
In this part of Reflecting you will:
ii. present an excellent reflection on how completing the Personal Project have extended your knowledge and understanding of the topic and the global context.
In your process journal respond in detail to the following questions:
- how has completing the personal project extended your knowledge and understanding of the topic of your product/outcome? (For e.g., if you have written a horror novel reflect on how your knowledge and understanding of the genre of horror, writing a novel, the role of fear in literature, the purpose of horror, etc. has extended through the process of creating your product / outcome.)
- how has completing the personal project extended your knowledge and understanding of the global context you have chosen? (For e.g., if you have chosen personal and cultural expression as the context for your product / outcome, how has you understanding of what is the nature and purpose of creative expression? Reflect back on the focus question of the global context you have chosen and reflect on how you have developed your understanding of this through your Personal Project.)
In this part of Reflecting you will:
iii. present excellent reflection on your development as an IB learner through the project.
Throughout the Personal Project you have made continual reflections on how you have developed as an IB learner in your reflections at the end of each stage of the Personal Project inquiry cycle. In this final reflection your need to reflect on all 10 of the IB learner profiles.
In your process journal create headings for each of the IB learner profile attributes and respond to the following questions for each of the 10 learner profile attributes:
- how have you developed the characteristics of this learner profile attribute?
- how and why is this learner profile important for your development as a young person who can help create a better and more peaceful world?
- how and why has this learner profile attribute helped you become more of an active and compassionate learner?
- how will you employ this learner profile attribute in your future learning for the remainder of Year 10, Stage 1 and Stage 2 and lifelong learning beyond school?
The Report
Now that you have created your product/outcome and reflected and documented each step of the personal project inquiry cycle, you now need to transfer this information to your personal project report. This is a formal piece of writing that provides a report on the completion of your personal project. The word count is 1500 words to 3500 words.
Step 1: Using the Personal Project report graphic organiser (if you would like this emailed to you, please just let me know in the comments) you need to respond to each heading and ensure that you have the following information under these headings:
Criteria A: Investigating
| Define a clear goal and context for the project, based on personal interests | In my report:
|
| Identify prior learning and subject-specific knowledge relevant to the project | In my report:
|
| Demonstrate research skills | In my report:
|
Criteria B: Planning
| Develop criteria for the product/outcome | In my report:
|
| Plan and record the development process of the project | In my report:
|
| Demonstrate self-management skills | In my report:
|
Criteria C: Taking action
| Create a product/outcome in response to the goal, context and criteria | In my report:
|
| Demonstrate thinking skills | In my report:
|
| Demonstrate communication and social skills | In my report:
|
Criteria D: Reflecting
| Evaluate the quality of the product/outcome against their criteria | In my report:
|
| Reflect on how completing the project has extended their knowledge and understanding of the topic and global context | In my report:
|
| Reflect on their development as IB learners through the project | In my report:
|
(Further guidance for MYP projects, 2014)
Step 2: Ensure you provide a bibliography and an appendices. (See Bibliography guide for examples of how you need to structure your bibliography – happy to email should anyone wish to have access to this.) Ensure you double-check your report for spelling and punctuation errors and before you show your supervisor ensure you have self-assessed your report against the personal project criteria.
Step 3: Once you have finished your report, you need to book your final meeting with your Personal Project supervisor for their feedback. Before you submit your final report, process journal and product / outcome, ensure that you have taken your supervisors feedback on board.
Step 4: Once you have finalised your report and it is edited and polished you need to print the Academic Honesty form, fill this in and ask your supervisor to sign. Once this is signed, you need to submit the following to the MYP Coordinators office:
- Academic Honesty form
- Personal Project report
- Personal Project Process journal
- Product / evidence of outcome. If the product is too large or you are unable to submit, ensure you have photographic evidence.
Well done for completing your Personal Project – a very significant achievement.
The Heart, Head, and Hands of Learning 
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