Project Best Practices
Use the following process to design and manage a successful project:
- Choose a project theme that relates to students' lives or a real-world topic.
- Define learning goals that are realistic, achievable, and aligned with your local education standards (if applicable).
- If you are new to ThinkQuest Projects, start with a project that is narrow in scope and has a limited number of learning goals. For example, start with a project that involves students within your own classroom only.
- If a project is proving too challenging or ambitious, reduce the scope by removing parts of the project that have the least impact on achieving the most important learning goals.
- As you gain more experience with ThinkQuest Projects, create projects with broader scope (for example, cross-curricular or inter-school projects) and expand the number of learning goals.
- Create a chronological list of tasks that students must complete to achieve the learning goals.
- Add the key outcome or product of each task. For example, a product could be an online report, presentation, or artwork portfolio.
- Estimate the duration of each task.
- Use the estimates to create a project timeline. Compare the timeline to class schedules to ensure that it is realistic and achievable.
- Determine how and when students will be assessed.
- Share the project goals, timeline, and assessment criteria with students early on to set expectations and increase their chance of a successful outcome.
- Monitor student progress throughout the project, and provide constructive feedback to improve the quality of their work.
- Provide students with feedback after the completion of their final products.
- Celebrate successful completion of a project to motivate students for participation in future projects.
Project Ideas
The following are some basic project ideas to get you started:
- School Newspaper - Students create project pages containing articles and photographs about interesting people and events in their school.
- Travel Brochure - Students create mini travelogues about the cities where they live, including digital photos and information on fun things to see and do.
- What's for Dinner? - Students from around the world describe a typical meal in their home countries. Project pages can include content on nutrition as well as local customs, markets, and agriculture.
- Nature in My Neighborhood - Students collect digital photos and facts about local insects, birds, and other animals for comparison with students in other communities.
- How Do You Say Hello? - Students create audio files and tutorials to help one another learn basic phrases in their different languages.
Project Examples
View the Lessons & Tutorials section for sample projects that can be conducted at the elementary, middle, or high school level.
For examples of great projects created by teachers, refer to the spotlight area on the right side of the My School, World, and Messages pages. This area showcases exemplary projects selected by Oracle Education Foundation Staff. Use the arrow buttons to navigate to different spotlights, or click the "All Spotlights" button (looks like a square with four dots) to view all spotlights.
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