Исследуем. Проектируем. Предлагаем

Литература

1. Андерсон К. TED talks. Слова меняют мир. Первое официальное руководство по публичным выступлениям. М., 2016.

2. An article from the site “Her Campus”. URL: https://hercampus.com/high-school/7-things-not-consider-when-deciding-where-apply-college (дата обращения: 20.02.2018).

3. Finnish school site. URL: https://www.hel.fi/peruskoulut/fi/koulut/ressu-comprehensive-school/ (дата обращения: 20.02.2018).

Человек ХХI века

The Human of the 21

century

Штыркова Екатерина

ГБОУ города Москвы «Школа № 1409»

Руководитель:

Козаева Ада Зауровна, учитель английского языка

Investigating

Research process

Research process starts with the idea that gives the possibility to move forward. A project that is really significant for you starts with a hobby or something new. It will take a lot of time even to think about making something bigger, such as sharing your experience with other people, proposing your discovery to the whole world. Research for me is being open-minded. While doing an IB project a student must not forget that the world is big and it is critically important to consider different opinions and sources, sometimes conflicting with each other. It makes research even more interesting! The process that must be shown has its formal planning from developing a hypothesis to reflecting.

Introducing my project

My personal project is called “The Human of the 21

century”. I think that it is a significant topic nowadays because most people are worried about self-development and they have definitely asked themselves the following question at least once: who can be called a modern person and what qualities must this person have? I have also done a lot of research works using IB profile. I find it inspiring and actual and I have not found anything yet which better reflects these qualities vital nowadays! I hope that my research can help somebody to think more deeply about his or her life and about the life of a modern person and to learn something new. Apart from acquiring new skills for myself, I have also learnt how to work with criteria and to meet the standards of format.

The hypothesis is “The human of the 21st century must be communicative, open-minded, balanced, honest and knowledgeable to correspond to the profile of a modern person”.

My global context is “Personal and cultural expression” because I study creativity and appreciation. I have also learnt much about education and educational activities in my project. I am trying to inspire people to discover original ideas and I am using a format of interview in order to show the reflections and advice of different specialists, different beliefs and values.

Personal interest and learning about myself through my personal project

This project interests me a lot because I have chosen a theme which seems not ordinary to me. It gives a lot of possibilities to do something new that I have never done before and improve something I already know. I feel I am a person of the 21

century and I want to become a real IB student with all these qualities and conditions, a successful and healthy person. While researching and reflecting I have developed something new in myself, which encourages me to continue my self-development.

What I am seeking to understand

In my research it is important for me to develop and explore something new, analyze a lot of information and points of view. I am also trying to understand the modern mechanism of personal success. I use as many sources as I can: books, internet, experience of my friends, advisors, teachers and mine.

The topic and its relation

“The Human of the 21st century” is the topic of my project and the question is “what are the must-have skills of a modern man?”

I have my personal interest because while working I improve myself in many spheres, such as a psychologist, a creator, a communicator and so on.

Today everybody is worried about mental health and success. The point is that there is not only one meaning of the phrase “a modern man”. The man can be modern with his personal qualities, modern as just a human living today, modern with his achievements, with his developing environment. Some of these meanings are more generalizing and some are connected to more narrow areas.

The global context

Identities and relationships can be also called socialization. It is a base of our century and also my main global context. At the beginning of my research I studied interdisciplinary communications and their influence on education. The context made me think more widely.

My specific knowledge

My prior learning is about interdisciplinary communications and education, especially about the one which International Baccalaureate program proposes us. Being encouraged by my supervisor to study more on IB learner profile, I have learned a lot of new information about “integrity and honesty” with which IB students strive to act and have made my learning experience the part of my product.

Listening to the teachers’ opinions, noticing some common topics and components is what I have done. I have also developed interest in psychology. I have read some famous books, such as “How to stop worrying and start living”, “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie, “The 7 habits of highly Effective people” by Stephen Covey and watched some TV shows.

The research

Thanks to one of the emerging technologies’ creation, the World Wide Web, I have got as many sources as I wish. I have access to a great amount of topics about almost everything happening on our planet, science researches and books, devoted to different themes.

Also I know that I must not believe everything I see and hear as everybody can make a mistake. I am always striving to use my critical thinking. Especially, while surfing the internet, I try to check and verify the information which I take into account. Extracting the right and relevant information from non-terminating sources is the must-have skill for a researcher.

Doing a research means receiving new ideas and seeing the problem from many points of view, which develops project in many ways. The challenge is to stick to the main idea but also evolve it.

I try to make record of the most useful information in my process journal. There are already some extracts, brainstorming activities and ideas which can be shared with others and used in report.

The challenge

The greatest challenge was dealing with all data I had at the end of analyzing. Knowing how to make sense of a great amount of information and staying focused are essential components of any research. Sometimes internet extract refers to the wrong topic or contains too much irrelevant facts. The problem of Information overload can be solved by filtering and carrying out only what I really need. It makes the brain work really hard.

Planning

My criteria

I had some conversations on the topic of IB criteria with my supervisor and also read some information about it. It is possible even to find some videos on YouTube about students’ personal projects all over the world. For me it was an interesting and motivating experience. I was attracted to the subject of my future product and its information value. I planned some themes for the videos, decided on the format. While working with my school TV channel, I realized that just speaking with a camera is not the way people like it and not the way it needs to be in order to become an interesting short movie. I have also used the data from criteria C which is taking action.

As for the quality of the product, it is not easy to record sound at home. I have tried it many ways and used some programs to make it better, and I hope it is OK now.

The development process and the process journal

I used my process journal to record my ideas, decisions, feelings as well as the reflections I got in the process. For example, I have written a lot on the topic of technical part. I am so concerned about it because for a video it is the most important. The movie can be the greatest in the world with the information and sense, but no one will have interest if the quality is not high enough. So, I thought I needed to include it in my journal in order to show how I had to deal with some problems. I reflected a lot, including the interview part. It is not so hard to speak with classmates. It is also not scary at all to question adults, even if it is a teacher or the president of the conference. But that is only because I have already done it many times with my school channel. Every time I am working, I understand how great it is to have a background of something you are going to do yourself, with knowledge on this work given by teachers. In my journal the events which I used as info-occasions are included and I also wrote the plans of interviewing and recording live video.

It was a great conundrum for me to choose a camera. I made my first video with my mentor. So, I took my father’s professional camera with a better quality and the point is that I was not able to work with it without my father’s assistance, as the camera was so heavy that it was really difficult even to carry it. Afterwards I realized that it would be more honest for me to do everything by myself and that was how I continued my work. I took another smaller camera with 1080p resolution. It was also a good one.

Timeline

The planning process is based on self-management as it is one of the requirements. While reading books about communication and improving yourself, I have also read a book of the German financial consultant Bodo Sch?fer “The art of time management”. I used some tips from it to make my research and the whole work better. I created a special schedule-timeline where I am writing my plans, meetings with my advisors, planning my monthly proceeding with the final product and a series of videos. To do everything right in time without excuses was the main time-management problem.

In my journal the events which I used as info-occasions are included and I also wrote the plans of interviewing and recording live videos. Sometimes I had to change my plans, adapt to circumstances. As a result, my work developed my critical thinking and communication in many ways. However, it made me more responsible for my time and actions.