Getting The Most Out of Capstone Projects with bulb Digital Portfolios at Turner Tech HS. Capstone Projects with bulb.
Photo by aurora.kreativ on Unsplash.
William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, located in the inner city of Miami, FL, is part of the Miami-Dade Public School System. M-DCPS is the 4th largest school district in the U.S. with 392 schools, and 133 of them on the U.S News & World Report list of 2020 Best High Schools.
Principal Uwezo Frazier of Turner Tech has over 24 years of experience in education. Fueled by giving back, sharing knowledge, and permeating it throughout the community, his plan continues to be to revolutionize education with innovation. One way he’s done this is through revamping the Senior Capstone Project.
"We're able to do all of this despite where we're located."
Turner is a total academy school with several nationally distinguished programs. All programs require a capstone project. Each senior works on their project and documents their progress in their bulb digital portfolio. Throughout the year, as students collect awards, demonstrate talents, and discover new passions and experiences they include them in their portfolios. While every grade level completes a capstone project, the emphasis is placed on the senior’s portfolios so they can be used to apply to colleges, internships, and jobs.
Before seniors graduate, they present their portfolios in front of the community. Creating a space for seniors to show who they are and what they know enables them to share with others that the challenges many of them experienced, growing up in inner-city Miami, does not define them.
Senior Capstone Projects has not always been so streamlined and empowering for seniors.
Before Principal Frazier, capstone projects were large stacks of papers passed back and forth between teachers, school leaders, and mentors. This paper-based system made it difficult for students to keep track of their work, and for teachers, leaders, and mentors to give meaningful feedback.
Concerned that students might exploit gray areas in the process and poke holes in a flawed system, Principal Frazier set out to find a new way. What would be a more streamlined way to document a student’s high school career? And what would be a more motivating system for the students to try their best?
Motivated to find a more efficient process for everyone’s time and resources, Principal Frazier began challenging the status quo. His goal was to create an environment where students could thrive. He knew the capstone project could be life changing for all students, but first he would need to empower them.
He was approached by Dr. Lupe Diaz, Executive Director of CTE for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, about using bulb Digital Portfolios as the paperless, efficient solution for the Senior Capstone Project. After thoroughly reviewing what it would take to implement the digital solution across the school, he decided to give bulb a try. William H. Turner Tech became the first Miami-Dade School to implement bulb on their campus.
Making this drastic change to a deeply embedded process was going to be challenging. Using his 24 years of experience, Principal Frazier knew his first step towards implementing bulb across the school was to inspire the educators. In a May 2020 bulb Webinar, Principal Frazier went into detail about how he did this, and offered the following advice to administrators for implementing new EdTech tools school-wide:
In addition to inspiring his staff, Principal Frazier regularly checks in with teachers and students to gain a pulse on how everyone’s doing. Some of his methods include:
The most impressive benefit of implementing a digital tool all students can use in their own way has been the evolution of quiet students finding their voice. Using the digital platform each student, introverted or extroverted, can decide how to showcase their work, capabilities, and processes in the way they are most comfortable and confident with.
Students at Turner Tech High School have been accepted to Ivy League Schools and HBCUs, and have landed prestigious internships. Principal Frazier attributes the students’ successes to the Senior Capstone Project. While students have always been able to discover and show to the world their passions, dreams, and capabilities, now with bulb Digital Portfolios they can continue this practice for life.
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