Crap day: first day of second quarter when it’s a three day week (no school Tuesday, no school Friday). I wanted to start thinking about what it means to do an individual project, mostly because I want to make sure these projects are viable.

I was thrilled because several key things I learned from last year came up:

One, there has to be an external mentor who they are regularly working with to ensure that there’s something real there. As a teacher, the work of the student in building and maintaining this relationship is not only necessary for the project’s success, it’s one of the more valuable things they’ll do.

Two, “impact” shows up on three of the posters and it allowed us to talk about how one measures a project, both while it’s going and once it’s complete.