Your Personal Project Report – A template

The body of the report (1500-3500 words) should be presented in identifiable sections, following the MYP project objectives—investigating, planning, taking action and reflecting. The report must include evidence for all the strands of all criteria.

REMEMBER! Some of these will be demonstrated in your Report AND in your PROCESS JOURNAL extracts!

Criterion A: Investigating

The student is able to:

i. define a clear and highly challenging goal and context for the project, based on personal interests

ii. identify prior learning and subject-specific knowledge that is consistently highly relevant to the project

iii. demonstrate excellent research skills.

Part One. Explain and justify your topic of interest. Why have you chosen to do this for your Personal Project? What do you hope to gain from it? What do you want to learn? What is the history of your personal interest in this topic?

Part Two. Use a Global Context to FOCUS your topic. Explain how your choice of Global Context has helped you focus in on a certain element of your topic of interest. Why does this Global Context work best? You could say how a different Context might have informed your project differently, and what limitations your chosen context place on you.

Part Three. What is your goal going to be (ONE SENTENCE!). How has your GC helped you narrow down your goal? How is it going to be HIGHLY challenging for you? You could refer to some of the ATL skills or Learner Profile attributes here.

Part Four. Prior learning and subject specific knowledge. This is ESSENTIAL. What have you covered in an MYP class that is relevant to your topic? How has it helped you and prepared you for this?

Part Five.

Research. ‘Excellent research skills’ include choosing a wide variety of relevant sources, justifying your selection of sources, and evaluating your sources using a formal evaluation tool. Process journal extracts can demonstrate this and be referred to in the report.

Criterion B: Planning

The student is able to:

i. develop rigorous criteria for the product/outcome

ii. present a detailed and accurate plan and record of the development process of the project

iii. demonstrate excellent self-management skills

Part One: What criteria are you going to use to evaluate your product/outcome? Why did you choose these and how will they demonstrate your development throughout the process?

Part Two: Your Process Journal. Describe how you used it to help you throughout your PP, refer to specific examples (in the appendix). How does it show the development of the project?

Part Three: Reflect on your self-management skills in the planning process. How did you organise your time? You can also use Process Journal extracts to show this.

Criterion C: Taking Action

The student is able to:

i. create an excellent product/outcome in response to the goal, global context and criteria

ii. demonstrate excellent thinking skills

iii. demonstrate excellent communication and social skills.

Part One: Your product. Describe the finished product/outcome and say how it relates to your goal, context and criteria. You do not need to evaluate it here.

Part Two. ‘Thinking skills’. Here you need to demonstrate how you applied what you learned (from your research) to your project, and how you overcame any problems.

Part Three. ‘Excellent communication and social skills’. Here you need to show you worked with other people to make your PP a success. The most obvious person is your Supervisor. You should give examples of interactions, and say how they helped you. Give examples of other times when you had to communicate in order to progress.

Criterion D: Reflecting

The student is able to:

i. present an excellent evaluation of the quality of the product/outcome against his or her criteria

ii. present excellent reflection on how completing the project has extended his or her knowledge and understanding of the topic and the global context

iii. present excellent reflection on his or her development as an IB learner through the project.

Part One: Using your own criteria, evaluate your product. Did you meet your goal? What could be better? Why and what would the impact be? What factors impacted the quality of your product?

Part Two: Reflect on your topic of interest. How has your knowledge and understanding of that topic changed? What do you now know? Has this experience changed your views on your topic of interest? What about the Global Context – show how you have a better understanding of your focus GC. Be explicit!

Part Three: Reflect on your own personal learning journey throughout the personal project. Use each of the ATL skills and show how this experience has helped you develop (or not!) throughout. A table is a good way to show this. What about the IB Learner Profile? Which traits have you demonstrated? Be explicit and give examples!

The report must include: title page ; table of contents ; body of the report ; bibliography or reference list ; appendices.

The title page must include the following.

Title of the project

Length (word count)

The body of the report should be presented in identifiable sections, following the MYP project objectives—investigating, planning, taking action and reflecting. The report must include evidence for all the strands of all criteria.

The length of the personal project report must be a minimum of 1,500 words and a maximum of 3,500 words, not including appendices and bibliography or reference list.

Reflection questions for producing the project report

These are questions you might use to help you think about your project when producing your report. You don’t have to answer each question as a checklist but they are to give you an idea of the type of information to include. You need to be aware of the overall word or time limit for the project. Some sections of your report may be longer than others; this is usual.

• What area of interaction was the context for your project? Why did you generally choose that Global Context? What specific features of the GC did you intend to focus upon in your project and why?
• What personal interest topic did you select? Why did this topic interest you? How much prior experience or understanding of this topic did you have? How does this interest or topic directly relate to your chosen area of interaction?
• What inquiry question did you design from the area of interaction and topic? What process did you use to decide on your inquiry question? Why is your question one that requires more than a simple answer? How can someone recognise the area of interaction in the question? How do they recognise the topic in the question?
• What goal did you set for your project? What specifications did you put in place to help you successfully complete your investigation and your project overall?

Select sources

• What resources did you investigate for your project? Why did you choose them? Were some resources better than others? Did you have any difficulties finding or using resources?
• What printed resources did you use? Why did you use them? Where did you find them? How easy were they to obtain? What was valuable about them?
• What electronic resources did you use? Why did you use them? How did you access them? How easy were they to access? What was valuable about them?
• What human resources did you use? Why did you use them? How easy were they to meet or talk to? What was valuable about them?
• How did you make your choices about what information to use and what to discard? How did you evaluate your sources?

A pplication of information

• What exactly did you do to complete your project? What decisions did you make based on the information you discovered? How did you solve problems? How did the information affect your choices?
• Were there any specific techniques you developed as a result of your investigation?

Achieve the goal

• Did you adjust or alter your original goal as the project developed? If you made changes, why did you make the changes? Do you feel that you successfully achieved your goal?
• Did you have to alter your specifications much during the process? Explain how effective your specifications turned out to be overall and evaluate your product.
• What level of achievement would you award your product or outcome based on your specifications? Does your supervisor agree with this?

Reflect on learning

• What exactly did you learn from your investigation? What was your response to your inquiry question? How did you reach your conclusion or hypothesis or point of view or expression of ideas? What aspects of your investigation really helped you to reach a better understanding of your topic?
• What new understanding do you have the area of interaction you chose to use as the context for your project? How did the area of interaction context give you a different or better understanding of your topic?
• How well did you do the project, according to your self-assessment? What did you feel you did well? What would you improve next time you do a similar project?
• What specific skills did you need to develop/apply to investigate and complete your project? What new skills did you learn, or what existing skills did you improve?
• What format did you use for your Journal and why was it your preferred format?
• What did you learn about yourself as a person through undertaking the project process? Which of the Learner Profile qualities did you find yourself exhibiting at different times and why? Have you improved in any of these qualities?
• What action should be taken by yourself and others as a result of what you discovered through your investigation? Why should that action occur? How might that action be implemented?
• Final comment about your experience with the project?

Can anyone help me to edit my project report?

The project report should be as error-free as possible so it is essential that you seek other people to edit your drafts. In publishing, the editing process is essential so it is essential you apply it in your Personal Project written statement. You can approach family, friends and teachers for assistance with grammar, punctuation and spelling matters. However, while they can help you with editing, they can’t WRITE the written statement for you. It must ultimately be your own work.

The same principle or idea applies if you are reporting your project in another format. If you are planning an oral presentation it is important to practise in front of an audience, whether that is your supervisor, friends or family. You can get feedback on drafts of your presentation before you make the final presentation.

Remember you are not doing this in your own. Your supervisor and others will help you on your way and by choosing something YOU want to explore, with planning and effort, you will complete the project and by the end of it be more knowledgeable and skilled in your chosen area.