[ARCHIVED] Capstone Course Ideas

[sinman]

Good morning all!

Does anyone here have experience designing and implementing a Capstone project "course"? Stevens is predominantly an engineering school, and we have a large cohort of students who take Senior Design. We are looking to create a course site in Canvas (that is not affiliated with the student information system or grades) as a place for students to communicate with one another about their project. If you have any insight into best practices for this type of course site, I would love to hear!

Some factors about the Capstone "course":

• It will be a huge class of about 300.
• It will be run with a new cohort every year.
• All students have a capstone project at the end.
• There are multiple teachers for the sections; however, all teachers should be able to access the Capstone course site to retrieve materials. (I was thinking it would be neat to have an instructor page in which students can see bios of all the instructors and potentially engage with them).

Thank you for your input!

Best,

Sarah

[Stef_retired]

 @sinman ​, since your prompt invites a discussion of best practices, I've changed the format accordingly. I've also shared this discussion with the Higher Education​ group to increase its visibility and promote participation.

[sinman]

Thank you stefaniesanders​!

[saltman]

Baker Web Academy has a Capstone course.  I didn't make it.  I just have students taking it. I don't think the class is public, but the pdf is:  Website Copy of Senior Capstone Project Guide.docx - Google Docs  More information here:  Capstone Project | Baker Charter Schools https://docs.google.com/document/d/134sRpyYaLDR5P8LbsPoXtPuWp_0zdE3HVkpJq6vlfSY/edit?usp=sharing

[apageor2]

Afternoon Sarah,

A few thoughts come to mind as I've taken graduate and post-graduate classes using Capstone.

How about deisigning a page with all educators and/or professors that are or will be involved with teaching?

I'm sure you have a page created but have a page structure at this time for teachers. My thought is to have something that can easily be updated as new instructors enter (or exit) the sessions. On each person's photo provide what is desired for each so the students can be easily updated as they see this page.  The above type structure would make matters simple maintenance to continue updates as necessary and also be quick down-time. Best of luck on this project!

Regards,

Sue

[sinman]

Oh, this is very interesting, Sue! Do you suggest using Commons for this -- for the shared page? We thought about creating an entire course in which all instructors would be enrolled as teacher/designer. We could manually enroll students and then have them sign up for groups in this kind of "dummy course". After they sign up for groups, we would enroll them in their respective live courses/sections. However, it seems like a lot of manual work. Another thought was to send out a Google Form prior to the live course to set up the groups.

Anyway, I appreciate your feedback!

All the best,

Sarah

[apageor2]

Greetings Sarah,

You could use Commons for a shared page or you could use what is best for your specific teaching environment to assure everything works smoothly. As you mentioned everything must work equal and each course/selection needs to flow smooth. What is valuable is having something that will perform easily and provide you with the best guidance as possible without interruption to the group settings when things are going live.

An option that I have always liked using is to narrow down the best two factors that work for your environment by using pros and cons of each environment. You can do this by taking a piece of paper, white board, etc and using division lines - PRO on one side CON on the other and writing things all out. It will take brain storming but you can invite others into a group that you feel will best assist to make this brain storming much easier.

After you have determined the best then follow your findings to see what comes about and how your students will react. I hope the above assists in building your ideas.

Regards,

Sue