Capstone to a high school education
Dissertation-like projects may soon be required for seniors
Matthew Sullivan, a Shelton High School senior, wrote a song. The 17-year-old has done it before, but never in a recording studio.
Jessie Costa, of Fairchild Wheeler in Bridgeport, was part of a team that developed a better prosthetic hand.
Gabriella Marshall and Laura Butteress, both of Stratford, were proven wrong.
The Fairchild seniors spent two semesters trying to show that women had better memories than men. Their research study suggests the opposite.
“We learned something,” Marshall shrugged, glad still for the experience of diving headlong into a topic of her own choosing.
As a member of the Class of 2019, Marshall is actually ahead of the game.
Unless the Legislature delays implementation of new high school graduation requirements again — many think they won’t — all public school students starting with the Class of 2023 will be required to complete a one-credit mastery based diploma assessment to graduate.
“I see no appetite in the Legislature to kick it further down the road,” said Jonathan Costa, assistant executive Director for EdAdvance, one of the state’s six Regional Educational Service Cen- ters that has been working with districts to create personal learning programs through Skills21, one of its departments.
The form that one-credit requirement takes is said to be flexible. Most read it to mean what is known as a capstone project — think dissertation or Eagle Scout project — something that taps into skills students have learned over a 13-year public school experience to suggest readiness for the future.
Many schools across the nation have a culminating capstone activity. Few, up until now, have states that mandate it. As of the 20162017 school year, at least 17 states had policies encouraging — though not requiring — some sort of performance assessment for graduation, according to the Learning Policy Institute of California.
The intent is for students to display mastery that aligns with Connecticut content standards, said Peter Yazbak, a state Department of Education, spokesman. The best way to do it is left up to local school boards.
As such, many are prepping.
Taking on the challenge
Not all capstones are a like. There are any number of combinations: full-year courses, half-year courses, no course but rather independent studies. Some schools grade the process; some the end product. Some don’t grade at all.
In Shelton, capstone is a requirement, but not a class. It has evolved and this year is shifting from senior to junior year. As such, both the Classes of 2019 and 2020 at Shelton High are in the throes of their capstone projects this school year. No one at Shelton High has flunked the capstone requirement, but some are given time to redo parts of their work, according to Headmaster Beth Smith.
At Fairchild, capstone is a course that wraps around the last semester of the junior year and first semester of the senior year. Many students work in teams, and projects often double as science fair entries.
The school held an expo earlier this month to show off project during which Taketo Kojima, 17, of Bridgeport, showed off a guard he designed to keep drones from getting stuck in trees.
Kojima said the project taught him how to do a presentation and overcome his fear of speaking in public. It solidified a love of aeronautics. He plans to study mechanical engineering in college and to someday be a pilot.
Isaiah Merced, 17, of Shelton, who worked with Dan Sikes, 18, of Stratford, on a device that can report potholes, said he learned to push through problems.
“It’s definitely different,” Merced said.
Butteress, who worked with Marshall exploring gender and memory, said she learned how to manage her time.
“It was a level higher than we were used to,” she said.
Kevyn Jackman, a teacher in Fairchild’s Information Technology School, said his advice to schools just starting the process is to make sure project ideas come from the students. EdAvance has exercises that help students come up with ideas.
Smith, of Shelton High, said her district began planning for a capstone when the state first talked about making it a graduation requirement. The mandate was delayed, but Shelton forged ahead with its model of creating a oneyear, culminating activity of a student’s choosing. Students must have a mentor, keep a journal, do research, and write a paper.
“It helped me figure out what I really want to do,” said Deanna Fava, a Shelton senior who made a circuit board to help teach kids the difference between drugs and things that look like them.
Sullivan, 17, who wrote and recorded the song, said it is probably something he would have done anyway. Capstone pushed him to do it sooner.
Difference of opinion
Not everyone is sold on the idea, at least as a make-it-or-break-it graduation requirement.
“Don’t tell me I got good grades four years and now I can’t graduate because of capstone,” said Maria Pereira, a Bridgeport Board of Education who likens the requirement to regent exams students in some states must pass to collect a diploma.
Ben Walker, another Bridgeport school board member and retired Greenwich music teacher, said his reservations were that most high school students have too little room in their schedules now for electives. “When it was first introduced to it I though it would take away from something else (students) might need to do,” Walker said.
The Bridge Academy, a charter school in Bridgeport, has had capstone projects since a couple of years after the school opened in 1997, because Director Tim Dutton was looking for something that forced students to use the skills and knowledge they were learning.
Dutton said he can count on one hand the number of students who failed a capstone. He can relate countless times when students ran down the halls screaming when they finish.
“It is something they all talk about as having prepared them (for college),” Dutton said. “It ups their game in senior year, when they could be coasting.”