Design Qualities

Content and Substance: Students are generally interested in their own community and yearn to exhibit a certain level or measure of pride in their community.

Organization of Knowledge: The project is easily broken up into 2 separate and distinct parts. The first part is meant to ‘equalize’ all students to the same knowledge and get everyone on the same page. Part II is intended to have students exhibit that knowledge.

Product Focus: The focus is clear and each student is given a checklist on what they need to accomplish for their final product.

Protection of Adverse Consequences for Initial Failures: The project is based on learning mastery and is not focused around cognitive recall so there is very minimal risk for any type of failure early on. That is why this is a wonderful lesson to use with students that exhibit traits of learned helplessness.

Novelty and Variety: Each student is able to put their own personal spin on each project and is awarded points for making their project unique.

Choice: There are several ways that a student can complete the task and the student is given a wide range of creative freedom as to the construction of their own time capsule.

Authenticity: The work is directly related to real world constructs and outcomes and gives the students a well rounded idea of their own surroundings and how they fit into a local, national, and global environment.