A New Kind of Capstone? (Cons)

Capstone is something diverse to JPEC, we face real life problems and try to find a way we could solve them. So why do we do it? We do Capstone to use our knowledge from all of our classes to work together with other leveled students to solve a world problem. Capstone has had multiple problems and change is needed.

On May 17th, the Capstone teachers spoke to their groups and figured out what exactly had to change. One problem is that some students don’t want to do it. It can be stressful and problematic, causing whole groups to have problems. If one student doesn’t do their work, it turns into a domino effect. They have now solved this problem by having everything be group work that everyone can help with.

Capstone is also in different classes than your focus group, but at the same time. This can cause scheduling confusion, not only is it in a different room, but with a different teacher and group of people. If Capstone was with focus group and all grades were assigned to each class, the groups could still have the different leveled students while remaining in a more comfortable area for everyone. The focus group teachers could assign groups, as they know the students who work well together and the ones that don’t. Another problem is that the world issues don't always have the best information, and everyone could end up doing the same exact topic.

Another idea the students had was scrapping the project all together, which would allow for us to work on more important work for our classes. Specifically, we could have more focus group periods. Having more focus periods would allow for more study hall, career pathway, and Achieve 3000 time. We could also add a group project to still have cooperation between students and grades. So, what do you think, should they change it even more in the upcoming years or just trash it?