Senior Projects are Boring

Boring Things: British Literature

Senior Projects are (mostly) boring, right?

Boring for students to research and write, boring for instructors to facilitate and grade, and boring for observers to observe.   

This is not some disembodied, abstract criticism.  After all, I had a significant stake in creating the format for our Senior Projects here at Furness.  I envisioned the theme (Issues in Contemporary Society), I helped to compile the topics, I set the guidelines, and I developed the presentation criteria.  From the root to the fruit, I am responsible for a great deal of it.

This means that I am, by logical extension, boring.

It's time to rethink Senior Projects, and PBL provides a great format in which to do so.  To be fair, there are certain elements of the Senior Project that are indispensable; conducting research, using MLA/APA citation, and public speaking are all necessary attributes that are going nowhere.  Still, these are just the contours of the content, NOT the content itself.   

Donna Sharer recently shared with me the curriculum for something called "Student Voices"  that we may want to review in determining a new course for Senior Projects.  The link to the curriculum is right here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/94301129/Student-Voices-Senior-Project.  Please review it and share your thoughts on how we might reformat the Senior Project at Furness in the mold of PBL.