I believe it's beneficial at the end of a class for students to apply what they learn to something they care about, or to further explore something they find interesting.

The term I use for this individual exploration is "Student Led Project".

The purpose of this project is for students to prove they can learn and apply what they have learned on their own.

A student led project should be done over a minimum of 3 weeks. Giving students sufficient time to plan, explore, and share.

Outline

The project should consist of the following parts:

  1. Plan
  2. Explore
  3. Share

Overlap of project tasks

Plan    : --
Explore :   --
Share   :    --

Plan

Planning should take about 2 weeks.

A basic project outline should be done before the projects three weeks starts.

Come up with a few different project ideas.

For each project idea:

  • Write up the idea as a 1 sentence goal.
  • Add additional clarifying sentences.

Agree on one project idea with your mentor. Your mentor should help you ensure the project is something reasonable that can be accomplished in the time available.

Write up a more detailed plan. Investigate as needed. Break the project into more specific tasks and estimate the time each will take.

Have your mentor review the more detailed plan and provide comments, and adjust the plan accordingly.

Explore

Exploration should take about two weeks.

Carry out the plan.

Some tasks may take longer than expected. If it appears you will only be able to get to a subset of the tasks, talk to your mentor and adjust the plan.

Share

Sharing should take about one week.

Present what you did to the class. Ideally though a 5 minute video.

Alternatives:

  • 10 minute presentation
  • paper

The goal of the presentation is to explain what you did so everyone can learn from your experience.

Philosophy

Student led projects are just that student led.

Mentors provide a framework and allow students to run their projects how they want to run them. It's ok if students deviate from the framework or students projects don't work out as planned, that's part of the learning experience.

Ways to mentor

  • Ask questions and have students explain what they are doing - often this is enough for students to realize they may be missing something.
  • Wait for students to ask for help or resources - part of being student led is allowing students to figure things out on their own.