Important Note About Course Preview

The material below gives you a sense of how you will want to guide your students toward the December 8-12 Catalyst Capstone Exhibition, and many of the topics and support materials included. This preview does not include all resources and content that students will see in the course. Some prompts and content have been replaced by placeholder information. This preview is for teachers' planning purposes only. Use it in combination with this teacher playbook to plan how you intend to scaffold the project with your students.

When you are ready to have your students engage with the resources directly and participate in the exhibition, you will click the button below and register them. They will automatically receive an invitation and course log-in credentials from GOA 48-hours after you complete the registration.

The course is "on-demand" which means that you, the teacher, choose how and when you want to have your students engage with the materials. The only fixed dates are, of course, the final submission due date and the exhibition itself.

Please send all questions to hello@globalonlineacademy.org.

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Register for the Course

The Catalyst Capstone Exhibition

A Global Student Exhibition of Learning

INTRODUCING CATALYST

The Catalyst Capstone Exhibition invites students to share, connect, and demonstrate the application of their skills to the real world.

For now, let's start by understanding GOA's big picture Why, What, and How of Catalyst. Use the arrows at the bottom of the slide deck to toggle through the information, or open in Google.

InTerested in Seeing Past Projects?

Check out curated highlights from the 2022 Semester 2 Catalyst Exhibition.

Preparing for Your project

Below, click on the expanders to review the components of the Catalyst Project.

Projects

The specific guidelines of projects vary by course, but the common thread is that everyone responds to the same Catalyst prompt:

Take concepts and skills learned in your course to share and live out a real-world project.

This is a broad prompt; GOA teachers will narrow the focus further by selecting from this list of three possible concentration tracks below.

Track 1: RESPOND

Projects propose or live out a solution that aims to make progress on a chosen UN Sustainable Development Goal.

Track 2: SHARE

Projects pursue and apply research that offers a for-now response to a Beautiful Question.

Track 3: IMPACT

Projects aim to make a change or an impact on a community of the student’s choosing.

Writing Beautiful Questions

Regardless of the concentration track, all projects begin with students going through a process to craft a "beautiful question," a term that comes from Warren Berger, who’s on a quest to promote curiosity and encourage inquiry.

Your beautiful question is the heart and soul of your work, an inquiry-based response to the project you are working on.

You will ultimately use your beautiful question as your exhibition of learning title. It might look something like this: How might _______ in order to______? If the idea of a beautiful question is new to you, see this website, A More Beautiful Question. for explanations and inspiring examples!

Creating Your Video

Every exhibition of learning must include a student-narrated video. Some exhibitions will include a video while other exhibitions may be a video or screen recording of multiple platforms where your project and learning are documented.

The video format gives visitors a sense of who you are, your goals and interests, and how you approached your project. Videos are an ideal place to restate and flesh out your beautiful question by making clear the problem and why/how you became interested in it. You might also choose to include how you arrived at a recommendation, conclusion, or call to action.

Exhibition Design

Every exhibition will look different. Variance among exhibitions will depend on the exhibition platform you use (eg. Google Slides, Padlet, a screen-recording of various tools, etc) your project and beautiful question, and any additional project requirements your teacher may have assigned. Regardless of these factors, there are universal design principles that will apply to all exhibitions of learning. Your teacher will provide additional guidance as necessary.

Design Considerations

Here we are including some basic design principles to consider as you begin the construction of your exhibition. As you explore these items, consider how you will apply them to your Catalyst Exhibition.

Prepare Text for Your Presentation

Odds are you have created a large research project this semester exploring your topic. The purpose of your Catalyst Exhibition page is to display a summary of your work that prompts your audience to engage and provide feedback. This will require you to make choices about what is the best, most essential information for your audience to have.

If you are unsure how to do this, here is an essential question to ask yourself. What information will your audience need in order to understand what you have learned and provide you with feedback?

Pro Tip: If you created a larger research paper for your class, and would like to make it available to viewers of your Catalyst Exhibition, consider linking your work or additional in-depth text as an option for viewers that decide they want to go deeper into the topic.

The Visual Experience

After synthesizing text and reflecting on design principles, it's time to think about images. Your exhibition should be a visually appealing experience for a viewer. Consider how media can serve to both draw your viewers in and to get them to stay there.

Asking for Feedback

All presentations of learning will need to include instructions for viewers on how to provide you with feedback. The type of feedback you seek from exhibition visitors will vary based on the project type, the Catalyst Track, the stage of development of your idea at the time of presenting. The way you collect that feedback will depend on the platform or tool you are using to share your exhibition.

Citing Your Sources

Throughout your project, you need to keep track of the resources you consult. Your Works Cited section has two primary purposes. First, it gives credit to those whose ideas you are using. Second, it allows your audience to find your sources and learn even more about the topic.

Completing Your Project

Below, click on the expanders to review the steps to complete your Catalyst Project.

Create Your Project Presentation

GOA has created a sample template for us to use (below) and you can make your own copy of that slide deck here.

Submit Your Project

You are ready to submit your presentation. Fantastic!

Open the Catalyst Submission Form and complete each question. The form will collect presentation details in a centralized spreadsheet for sharing

Explore the Exhibition

Congratulations on sharing your learning! It's now time to see what other students have been working on.

Start by opening the Catalyst Exhibition Student Gallery in a new window and locate your own submission to verify it is there (don't forget to take a screenshot and upload it in the submission task). Use the tips in the expanders below to help you browse and search. Then begin exploring other presentations.

Engage in Feedback

After exploring submissions, you will engage and respond to peers – both within and beyond your class. Follow the instructions below.

Feedback within the Course

Explore presentations within our course.
When you engage with a presentation take time to offer feedback.

Teachers: Visit our resource hub

The Teacher Resource Hub includes required information that you will need to review before engaging preparing for the exhibition. We have also assembled optional student resources used in past Catalyst Capstone Exhibitions to give you the flexibility to incorporate supplemental information or activities for your students.

Go to the Resource Hub