In order to foster rich, authentic and creative achievement in our students, CSW instituted a senior Capstone Project. Every senior is required to complete a project that demonstrates what he or she can do at the culmination of a CSW education. Seniors will concentrate on an area of interest, explore it in depth from different perspectives and present their understanding to others in a number of different ways. Such a project shows ownership—how students can take personal responsibility for a project and exhibit real passion and engagement for their chosen task. It also encourages students to go beyond textbooks and classroom curricula to something new and creative and along the way, requiring them to reflect upon their intellectual growth and process.

     The Capstone Project builds upon and makes connections within our module system and provides opportunities to connect our own activities and interests to the wider community. Perhaps most importantly, the Capstone Project allows us to better celebrate our students’ interests and accomplishments as individual learners.

     Each student will be matched with a Capstone advisor at the end of his or her junior year. Students will pursue their projects over the course of their senior year, conferring with their Capstone advisor on a weekly basis, meeting various deadlines and keeping ongoing journal of their work as a complete and thorough record of their progress. The projects culminates in an independent Capstone block in Mod 4, 5, or 6, during which seniors complete their projects, including a written component of at least six pages, and a two-page personal statement about process and growth, and present it. Two members of the Capstone Committee, one of whom is that student’s Capstone advisor, will evaluate each Capstone Project: the written component and, where appropriate, the physical project, and the presentation. Seniors must pass each requirement in order to graduate.

 

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