FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
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Welcome to Voices, a national award-winning podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District.
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Jeff Krakoff: This is Jeff Krakoff. I'm speaking with Natalie Green, who is a senior high school English teacher. Thanks for joining us today.
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Natalie Green: Thank you for having me.
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Jeff Krakoff: So, Natalie, there's a yearly Graduation Project. Can you kind of tell us how it got started, what it is?
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Natalie Green: Absolutely. Graduation Project started at Seneca Valley in 1998. That was our first graduating class to complete it. And at the time it was a statewide graduation requirement. Over the years, the state has changed their graduation requirements. However, Seneca seeing the value in student design learning has kept Graduation Project with alterations, with adaptations and modern modernity to make sure that our students still had opportunities to create their own learning and to have that fulfilling experience of executing their own plan and coming to fruition with their own learning.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So what you're saying it's been around for about 25 years, but it's evolving as education evolves, right?
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Natalie Green: Definitely. Everything has to evolve to stay relevant. And so we have done that as well with Graduation Project. We are moving in a direction that is more career oriented. The entire district is for our secondary students moving in a more career preparation readiness with we're calling them graduation pathways and our Graduation Project aligns with that. So students have more encouragement and opportunity to look into potential career pathways, and there is still opportunity for kids to pursue personal interests that are just lifelong enrichments.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay. Can you walk us through and give us kind of a summary of the components of the Graduation Project, what's involved?
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Natalie Green: The Graduation Project is actually pretty basic and it's real core. We want our students to come up with an idea of something that they would like to explore. It could be learning a new skill, learning about a career or a potential path for their futures. It could be learning a skill that they don't see is a moneymaking opportunity, but just something to enrich their lives. They take those ideas and they develop a plan that allows them the opportunity to spend at least 20 hours of time outside of their school hours learning and working on this plan and coming to some sort of finality or product or project that kind of shows their learning. And then the last element is that we want them to involve others. We want them to have a mentor of somebody that's at least 21 and has expertise in their area who can serve as a connection into that new world, who can help guide, steer, advise and hopefully open some channels for our kids.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay, That's awesome. So you mentioned mentors. How exactly do they get involved? It's pretty much wide open to each student who they want to select as a mentor?
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Natalie Green: For sure. We know that kids are, you know, most comfortable with people that they've already met, but this is a great opportunity to meet some new people, especially if you are doing something that could lead to a career path. Um, but really, anybody that our students have comfortable communication with that have invested interest or a skill that is related to their students project and is a true adult at least 21. Um, and of course we want our students parents to be comfortable with their choice as well. So we do have check and balance for that. Um, but mentors come in every shape, size and we've had students who have mentors who have very specialized, you know, maybe a musical ability or scientific talent or something like that to maybe something more general like a teacher that they are very familiar with and have easy access to.
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Jeff Krakoff: Got it. So just a little bit ago, you mentioned it's pretty wide open, right? Whatever the student wants to do with their personal interest, are there any kind of parameters, pathways, categories just to try to rein in the whole universe of possibilities for students?
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Natalie Green: Definitely. Graduation Project has so much material to cover. There are so many different avenues that you could explore that it can be overwhelming, you know? And so, yes, we do have some structure to it. We actually have five pathways that projects can be categorized in, and we provide materials for the students and their families so take a look at that kind of explains those pathways and some potential projects under each pathway. And these are the same pathways that our district is using to help guide students whenever they make their choices of courses in their ninth through 12th year. So we try to keep everything kind of similar so that it is familiar but also useful. So our pathways are arts communication and media, and so that one's pretty broad for our creative types. Business, math and information technology is our second one. Industry, engineering and technology is our third and really one of our biggest because it covers a lot of the trades and some of our professions that are still evolving with our new mean as the world evolves, you know, and preparing kids for jobs that don't exist yet, health, medical medicine and human services is a very popular pathway. This wouldn't cover everybody from, you know, maybe you're interested in being an X-ray technician to a neurosurgeon, an EMT to, HR in the medical field, you know, really covers a lot. And then our last one is education, public safety and law. So sort of more of those public services.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay. Well, I know the Graduation Project. It includes a portfolio, a presentation. What are the requirements that a student has to have in this project?
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Natalie Green: Sure. So throughout the senior year, typically, students will complete their assignments starting in October. That's when they officially propose their ideas. And then they spend the next few months working on their project. In the spring, we start to prepare for their portfolios and their presentations. Throughout the year they put together their portfolio. We use electronic portfolios where they upload some of their checkpoint assignments, evidence of the project. They've been doing reflection like reflective essays on the progress and the process time card that shows what you know, how they've invested their time and how it kind of stacks up. And then at the end of the year, in the spring, as we were winding down this process, we have the students write a letter. It's more like a personal statement, just kind of talking directly to the teachers who are going to look at their work. So just talk about themselves as an individual, their senior year, not just Graduation Project, but their senior year as a whole. And just to make that 1 to 1 connection. And we also do a resume so our students leave here. Seniors freshly graduated with an up to date resume that they can take and use as they start looking for employment, whether that's short term summer employment or potential career long employment. So we like to leave them. We want to have them armed with that when they go.
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Natalie Green: And then we prepare for a presentation. The students present their project to a panel of about five teachers from our secondary campus, and they basically just talk about their process and we ask them to really emphasize what they learned. And usually the lessons are not so much about the career or the art path, but more about themselves, who they are as an individual, how they've grown up to become a young adults, the skills that they've acquired and things like that.
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Jeff Krakoff: So you've got some concrete, tangible things students are learning, whether it's having a good resume, presentation skills. But and what other ways are you seeing that students benefit from working on these projects?
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Natalie Green: So I think the biggest product, so to speak, that kids get out of this process is a sense of pride and success because they truly have created this learning plan. We've given them guidance, but they have ownership of it and think that that's something that you cannot, um, cannot match. You know, when you really, truly own your own experience in along with the assignments and, you know, the process of keeping track of your work, we do emphasize the skills of time management communication, particularly with your mentor, um, organization, things like that, things that we've been working with them, you know, since they were little guys in kindergarten, you know, But now they are ready to emerge onto the world as adults. And so I think this is a good opportunity for them to, you know, relish in their own abilities and see how much they have come and grown and how much more they do throughout the process of the graduation project of growing up and becoming those adults. It's a very rewarding experience to watch them on the day that they give their presentations. They are usually all smiles, nerves when they come in, but all smiles when they leave. A sense of relief because this is their success. And they own it. They earned it and they own it.
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Jeff Krakoff: What a great experience. I have to ask, can you share a few examples of what students have done in the past for their project?
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Natalie Green: Absolutely. My favorite projects as a Graduation Project teacher to see, or the creative ones. I've had students build furniture, paint murals, learn different culinary styles. Those, I think are really interesting because those are skills that aren't typically showcased in my English classroom. We've also had kids do phenomenal volunteer work. Butler County Humane Society. Animal Friends. Parents in Toto. Gleaners Food Bank usually receive an influx of our kids, but there's a lot of other community groups that have as well. So it's great to get the young people out into the community and give back and they usually really enjoy that. We've had students do fundraisers for causes that are close to their heart. Those are very rewarding projects as well because they usually pick a foundation or a charity to give their efforts and their funds to based on a personal experience. A relative or close person to them struggling with a medical issue or something like that. So it adds that little bit of depth. And then career is probably our biggest and most popular segment. We do encourage kids if they aren't really sure what they want to do after high school to do a job shadow as their Graduation Project so that they can go out into that career for a couple of days and see the reality of what it is to do some of the different professions that they think they might be interested in.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay. Now, how often does students say, I know exactly what I want to do vs., gee, I have a lot of thoughts and ideas from I'm having trouble and they want to talk to you or another teacher. What? Tell us a little bit about.
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Natalie Green: Sure. So all of our students have an English teacher. Their senior English teacher helps guide them through this process. So everybody has access to help. And there's about 12 of us who teach Graduation Project. And over the years we've really honed our skills on helping kids develop project ideas. We do get a, you know, probably a slim margin of kids that are completely determined. They know what they want to do and they know how to put it together, which is great. And then we get very slim margin who has no clue. And that's okay. We know how to help you, but it's usually the middle group that's the most interesting. They have heard what other kids have done, or maybe they've had a sibling who's done Graduation Project and they're thinking, maybe I'll do that, maybe I'll do this. I know what it like, what to expect, but I'm not really interested. And so that's where the best conversations with kids come from is talking about their own interests and how we can develop a project that really suits their needs, their interests, their skills and abilities as an individual. Graduation Project. Teachers learn a lot about their students because we, you know, we do have these great conversations and then we do get to see the kids go through this learning process that is pretty new to them. And it's not something that they've really done before. So we get to see a lot of growth and individuality with our seniors.
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Jeff Krakoff: All right. So if a student or parent is listening and wants to get a head start or thinking about it or get more information, I assume there's information on the district website.
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Natalie Green: Absolutely. On the svsd.net website, select the senior high school, scroll down to the bottom of the page where we have a listing of all of our links. Right in the middle is one for Graduation Project. So anybody can access all of our materials at any time. There's also contact information for myself and two other teachers who kind of lead this expedition. We are happy to answer any questions or field any concerns as they might grow. This is a very rewarding experience for our kids that go into it with a positive, open outlook. And I just want to encourage anybody who's preparing for Graduation Project, whether you're a student or a family member or parents of a student who's about to be a senior, um, really think about what you like, what you enjoy. How you work as an individual and we will help you design the perfect project for you.
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Jeff Krakoff: All right. So now is there any additional information you'd like to share or any final thoughts before I let you go?
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Natalie Green: Just that I am so excited that we are celebrating our 25th anniversary and I hope we've got 25 more years in us.
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Jeff Krakoff: I am sure you do. Well, thanks so much. Again, that was Natalie Green, who is an English teacher at the Senior High school. Thanks for your time today. Thank you.
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Natalie Green: Very much. Take care.