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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world."
- Margaret Mead

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Created By
Name Title
RUBINA PASHA Interdisciplinary Project Work Manual


Versions, Editions and Updates
Date Name Changes
JULY
2013
RUBINA PASHA Version 2013.0
Aug 2014 RUBINA PASHA Version 2014.0


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3

Chapter 2 .......................................................................................................................... 4
Primary Interdisciplinary Project Work ............................................................................
Chapter 3 .......................................................................................................................... 8
Secondary Interdisciplinary Project Work .......................................................................
Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 19



















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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Interdisciplinary Project Work (IPW) had been introduced into PIAGET Schools to incorporate
21
st
Century Skills in the broad based education at PIAGET Academy.

AIMS

! To provide opportunities for students to display their creative and innovative talents;
! To develop and enhance students adversity quotient (AQ).
! To encourage students to participate in project-based activities and research work as a
means of a holistic education.
! To develop PIAGET values in students
! To incorporate 21
st
Century Skills

As an added incentive, the Secondary team winners will be sent to Singapore to participate
and compete at the prestigious Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) Projects Day.

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CHAPTER 2

PRIMARY INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT WORK
DESCRIPTIONS
- This programme is opened to Primary 5 and Primary 6 pupils of NHJS .
- The respective class mentor to monitor the primary school students involvement in this
programme.
- Each group can be made up of a maximum of 5 members.
- The mentoring programme will be on Wednesdays during curriculum time from
1.30 2.30 pm.
Assessment
The students will be given a grade for their IPW project in Term 3.
The percentage weightings of the components to be assessed based on the rubrics
(Appendix 1) are as follows:
(a) Quality of Process 40%
- Mentors will assess each students ability to work in a team.
- *Collaborative Work Rubric (Appendix A2)
- *Log book Rubric (Appendix A1)

(b) Quality of Product 40%
- Judges will assess the model.
- **Model and Presentation Rubric (Appendix B)

(c) Peer Evaluation 20%
- All students in the group are expected to evaluate their peers in terms of their degree of
contribution to the project in Term 3.
-
#
Peer Evaluation Rubric (Appendix D1)


* Assessed by Mentor Teacher
** Assessed by Judges
#
Assessed by Team mates
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Theme for 2014- 2015: Indonesian Architecture
CLASSIFICATIONS
Primary Fives and Sixes will be appreciating the Indonesian architecture which is multifaceted
and includes influences from many cultures ranging from India, Middle East, Chinese and
Dutch.
The students will be asked to build a model of the future uniquely Indonesian building.They
need to think carefully about the type of material, the architectural influence from the 33
provinces of Indonesia and the advantage of their design.
The students are allowed to either build a 3D model or use any programmes that they are
comfortable with such as Minecraft.
At the end of the project, the students will have to showcase their design and discuss on the
merits of their design.
CLASSES INVOLVED
Class Mentors
P5G

Ms Prescy and Mr Marsiglio
P5E

Mr Lim K.B and Mr Ariel

P6G Ms Chie and Mr Wilfred

P6E Mr Eddie and Ms Herlin














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TIMELINE
Term 1 Primary 5 Primary 6
T1W3
20 Aug

Introduction to Indonesia Architecture (Ms Rubina)
Venue: Auditorium

T1W4
27 Aug
Talk by Lego (To Be Confirmed)
1.Team Forming and Brainstorming
Facilitator: Mentors
Venue: Classrooms

Sat Visit to Pola Raya Studio (To Be Confirmed)
T1W4-7 2. PLAN & CREATE
Students to research on the Indonesian
Architecture.
Students to begin to create their models based on
their research.
They should note down the advantages and
disadvantages or problems faced with their designs.
Mentors should be assessing students from this
week onwards and placing marks in the
spreadsheet provided. [Teamwork and Log Book]
T2W1-3 2. PLAN & CREATE
Students to begin to create their models.
They should note down the advantages and
disadvantages or problems faced with their designs.
T2W4-8 3. IMPROVE
Students to improve on their models.

T2W9-11 Semester Review 1
No IPW sessions

T2W12- 3. Presentation Preparation.
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T3W2 Students to prepare PPT or Prezi and script for their
5 minute presentation
T3W3 Math and Science Week and IPW Primary
Showcase
Projects will be judged during this week.
T3W4 IPW Survey
Students to bring their own device to log into iLearn


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CHAPTER 3

SECONDARY INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECT WORK

DESCRIPTIONS
The IPW for the secondary cohort was modeled on Hwa Chong Institute (HCI) Projects Day. It
involves the Secondary 1 to Secondary 3 pupils . Each group consists of a maximum of four
students and they should come from the same class. The four different categories are as
follows:
! Category 1- Experimental Research
! Category 2- Non-Experimental Research
! Category 3 - Inventions
! Category 4 Resource Development .

CLASSIFICATIONS
Category 1- Experimental Research
This area of project work emphasizes the following process skills: Thinking, Questioning,
Recording, Checking, Testing, Measuring, Analyzing, Estimating, Predicting, Observing,
Tabulating, Graphing, and Comparing. The specific process skills used will depend on the
purpose and hypothesis of your project.
A research strategy would typically involve each of the following:
A. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND HYPOTHESIS
Briefly describe or define your topic. What do you want to find out? State what you think will
happen in a hypothesis.
B. MATERIALS AND METHODS
How will you test your hypothesis? List all the materials you will need. Identify all variables
(Controlled, Independent, Dependent). Explain how your research is to be conducted in a "step
by step" fashion with sufficient details so that other researchers can replicate it.



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C. COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
What types of data are required? How do you record them? How do you ensure reliable and
accurate data are collected? What did the data you collected indicate about what happened in
your research project? Include all data here in a suitable chart/graph/table. What did your
chart/graph/table and statistical analysis show? This is especially important with regards to your
hypothesis!
D. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
What did you find? What does your analysis of data indicate? State whether you accepted or
rejected your hypothesis. Why? How do your findings compare to those of other researchers'?
E. APPLICATIONS
How will your research findings help people solve problems or make the world a better place to
live? How could your findings be used to further explore your area of research?
Adapted from: http://youth.net/nsrc/call.html

Category 2- Non-Experimental Research
Is motivated by a practical problem which defines the research question.
E.g. An existing social issue widely reported in the newspapers or widely debated in online
forums.
Often leads to a proposed solution that helps to solve the practical problem.

For example, if you are interested in how people view topics like God and religion in a multi-
racial context like Singapore, human sexuality in conservative Asian societies or socio-political
issues like the death penalty in the Singapore context (just to name a few examples), a
quantitative methodology would not do anything more than summarize a few key positions on
these issues. If you really want to achieve an in-depth understanding of these issues and make
linkages to how these topics affect current policies and practices, a thorough preliminary
research or a literature review of historical and contemporary developments of your chosen
topic needs to be done. This means that the springboard for your research needs to be based
on a sound, academic platform. You need to ensure that the topic you choose fits into a larger
development context and also examine how that topic has evolved through time.
Two key questions you need to ask yourself:
1. So what? Beyond your own interest, why would others think that your topic is a question
worth asking.
2. What will be lost if your question is not answered? How will not answering your research
question keep us from understanding something better than we do?

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Once you have completed the literature survey you should come up with a concrete plan for
data collection. This usually means that some form of in-depth interviewing, participant
observation, direct observation or research into relevant case studies is probably called for.

Qualitative researchers believe that the best way to understand any phenomenon is to view it in
its context. For some researchers, this involves moving into the culture or organization you are
studying to experience what it is like to be a part of it (e.g. of a case-study approach). Or you
can adopt a comparative and extrapolative approach by examining case-studies pertaining to
societies with strong correlated contexts. Only then are you more likely to begin to formulate
your own ideas about any causal-effect relationship(s). This is where most of the more
interesting and valuable new theories and conclusions emerge.
Rather than approaching measurement with the idea of constructing a fixed instrument/set of
questions as in quantitative analysis, qualitative researchers allow the questions to emerge and
change as they become familiar with what they are studying. So, unlike quantitative
researchers, qualitative researchers look for credibility, transferability, dependability and
verification in their point of view instead of trying to establish "validity" in any external or
objective sense (that is, an objective right or wrong).

An important three-step formula for identifying the significance of your research question:
1. Topic: I am studying ..........
2. Question: because I want to find out what/why/how ..........
3. Practical/Conceptual Significance: in order to help my reader understand ..........
A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH MODEL

I Identify the issue or problem

What is the issue or problem? Who are the stakeholders and what are their positions? What is
your initial position on this issue? Is the source reliable? Note: The foundation for the entire
research MUST be based on a solid academic platform.


II Vital Step: Read about the issue and identify points of view or arguments through information
sources

What are your print sources? What are your media sources? What are your people sources?
What are your preliminary findings based on a review of existing sources? Note: Refer to
journals, archives of political speeches by key figures, newspaper archives, critiques or other
academic publications. Wikipedia should only be used as a convenient springboard, it SHOULD
NOT be the MAIN SOURCE of information.








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III Form a set of questions that can be answered by a specific set of data
There is no fixed number of research questions that you need to pose, although the questions
posed will determine the kind of data that you need, hence influencing your data collection
method(s).
At least 3-5 RQs are recommended.
Examples:
What would be the results of ___?
Who would benefit and by how much?
Who would be harmed and by how much? How does the phenomenon happen?
Why does the phenomenon happen?

IV Gather evidence through research techniques such as interviews, observations, case studies
Which research technique is most suitable for exploring this set of data? What is the modus
operandi adopted by researchers in this field?
What interview questions should you ask? What observations should you make? How do these
differ from current observations by academics and experts?
Which cases should you study? Why are these cases significant/relevant?
Remember to base your methodology on existing research by a recognised community of
practitioners.
V Manipulate and transform data (coding) so that it can be interpreted

How can you summarize what you found out? Should you develop charts, diagrams or graphs
to represent your data?
Can you classify the data into themes/categories?

VI Draw conclusions and make inferences

What do the data mean? How can you interpret what you found out? How do the data support
your original point of view? Do you need to modify your original point of view? Are you able to
use academic theories to explain the data? How does it support other points of view? What
conclusion(s) can you make about the issue?

VII Determine implications and consequences

What are the consequences of following the point of view that you support? Do you know
enough or are there now new questions to be answered? What new conclusion(s) can you form
from further investigation?

VIII Communicate the findings

What are your purpose, issue and point of view and how will you explain them to your intended
audience?
What data will you use to support your point of view?
How will you conclude your presentation?

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A QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH MODEL
A research strategy would typically involve each of the following:

I. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND HYPOTHESIS
- Briefly describe or define your topic. - What do you want to find out? - State what you think will
happen in a hypothesis.

II. METHODOLOGY
- How will you test your hypothesis? - Identify your samples, variables, design a
questionnaire and/ or conduct interviews to collect data, code the data and decide the
scope of measurement you think is appropriate for your study.

III. ANALYSIS OF DATA AND IMPLICATION
- What did the data you collect indicate about what happened in your research project? -
Include all data here in a simple text chart. What did your chart and statistical analysis
show? This is especially important with regard to your hypothesis.

IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
- What did you find out? - What does your analysis of data say in brief? - State whether you
accepted or rejected your hypothesis. Why?

V. APPLICATION
- Utilize what you learned from your research in the world outside of the classroom. How will
your research findings help people solve problems or make your world a better place to live? -
Or how could your findings be used to further explore your topic?













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Category 3 - Inventions
1. The Invention:
The emphasis is on originality and creativity. Both these concepts may be interpreted in a
variety of ways, e.g. if a piece of wood is your base material, how would you exploit its shape,
size, texture, flexibility, etc.

You are encouraged to modify and recycle materials. Parts may be purchased, but projects
would be severely penalized if many of the major parts of the prototype were obtained
commercially. You need to demonstrate the invention with a working prototype. Research or
surveys and experimentation with the prototype needs to be conducted to convince the judges
that it is feasible and would benefit others.

All projects should be of a size and scale that you can handle as students, within the limited
time-frame given. Do not be too ambitious you might find yourself frustrated with an unfinished
project when it is time to be judged.

2. An Invention Log:
An invention log has to capture your inventive process. You should start using one the moment
you think of an idea for an invention.

Keeping an invention log is a very important part of the invention process. Your log book can
help you prove that you had the idea for this invention first. Inventors sometimes have to prove
they were "first to invent" in order to receive a patent. Your log book can also help you keep
track of all your ideas, and it will help you organize all of the steps required to complete the
invention process. The log book will help you capture your groups reflection throughout the
invention process as well.














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Category 4 - Resource Development .
Resources refer to facilities, equipment and most things which are of use to us. Do you have a
brilliant idea on how to improve or extend the use of existing resources?
In a resource development project, you can create resources such as a tool or database or
website, and work towards providing users with in-depth content or even an aid to learning a
new skill.
Some recent examples of successful resource development projects include creating online
lesson packages (e.g.War Memorial Online Revisited 2008), a board game to learn Malay (e.g.
The Main Course 2009) or even a prototype to cool roofs (e.g. Cooling through Conserving
2009).
OUTCOMES

Process Outcome:

The process outcomes can also be captured through the use of: - videos (which can be added
to the website) - group journals (which can be included in the web site)

Try to capture the processes the group underwent while doing the project. It is the dynamics of
group work and learning from experience which will enhance lifelong skills and hold more
meaning in a group project.
The process outcomes are judged during the semi-finals and finals. One focus is the criteria of
metacognition, where you are expected to share on the use of thinking skills or reflect and
evaluate all steps of doing the project.

Note that most of the successful Category 4 projects involved some form of primary data
collection, via interviews or surveys.



Product Outcome:
Projects may be in the form of a website, brochure, poster, video, boardgame, etc. You can also
choose to submit a combination of the above.









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In summary
Category Deliverables
Category 1- Experimental
Research

Report
PowerPoint Slide
Category 2- Non-Experimental
Research

Report
PowerPoint Slide
Category 3- Invention

Completed Prototype
Log Book
PowerPoint Slide
Category 4 Resource
Development

Completed Resource
PowerPoint Slide

More information : http://hsprojectsday2013.wiki.hci.edu.sg/

ASSESSMENT
The students will be given a grade for their IPW project in Term 3.
The students are assessed based on the HCIs rubrics for each category (Appendix 2). However
final grade will be awarded based on a Peer-Peer evaluation (Please read Appendix 3)
Top teams for each category will compete in the inter-Piaget Projects Day that will be held in
February.
The winners of the inter-Piaget Projects Day will represent the school in the HCI Projects Day
Semi-Finals and then if selected, Finals in Singapore.

Presentation and Judging Day
It would be conducted during the Math and Science Week (26-30 January 2015).






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TIMELINE
TERM 1
Week 2

INTRODUCTION
! Introduction to 4 categories

! CAT 1- Experimental Research
! CAT 2- Non-Experimental Research
! CAT 3 - Inventions
! CAT 4 Resource Development

Facilitator: Ms Rubina
Venue: Auditorium
Week 3

1. TEAM FORMING
Form Groups and Assign Roles
The total number of participants for each entry
should not exceed 4 and they should belong to the
same class.
(Students should think about task they want to
embark on and confirm with mentor )
Students are asked to get a group file- to file
documents and to write down things such as their
ideas, troubleshooting mechanisms.

Students should decide on category they will
work on.
(Students should think about task they want to
embark on and confirm with mentor )
Facilitator:
Class Mentor(s)
Venue: Mentor Class
Week 4 Students will be informed of their IPW Mentor by
Monday.

ON Wednesdays, Students will go to their IPW
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Mentors Class for consultation sessions.
2. PLAN & CREATE
A. Diagram: Make a plan.
Week 5-7

2. PLAN & CREATE
B. Materials: List the materials, including amounts
needed.
TERM 2
Week 1

2.PLAN & CREATE
C. Build: Students should build their invention
according to their plan.


Week 2 2.PLAN & CREATE
D.Obstacles: Write in Student Log Book the
difficulties they ran into and how they cope with
them.
Week 3-8 3.TEST & IMPROVE (Round __)

A. Test: See if it works! Update log book of when and
how students tested. Evaluate the results. Students
may take pictures or videos.

B. Improve: Students should gather information from
the test of their first design to help find problems
that need improvement. Improve their first design to
make it better!
C. Re-Test: See if it works better! Add the new data to
their log book to show the change.

Facilitator: IPW Mentors

Venue: IPW Mentor Classrooms

Week
9-11
Semestral Review
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Week 12 4.CONCLUSION & APPLICATIONS
Students should review how well their project worked
and how it might be useful to others.
TERM 3
Week 1 Students to work on their Presentation
(PPT Presentation limited to 5 minutes only)
Week 2 Students to work on their Presentation
Students to carry out Peer Evaluation.
Week 3 Math and Science Week and IPW Presentation.
Week 4

IPW Survey
Students to bring their own device to log on iLearn.
Video recording of Shortlisted teams on Wednesday 12
Feb at 2.00 pm.
Deadline for Submission of Project Details (6 Feb
2015) and uploading of slides and video on iLearn
Piaget.
Week 5
12 Feb

PIAGET Projects Day Deliberation Exercise
Submission of Project on iLearn.
Video Presentation as well as reports [Cat 1 and 2only]

Week 6 Chinese New Year Holiday
Week 7
22 Feb
Inter Piaget Projects Day QnA/Judging Day

Week 8
2 March
Announcement of Teams to compete in HCI Projects
Day
April
2015
HCI Preliminary
July 2015 HCI Semi-finals
August
2015
HCI Finals


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APPENDIX 1- Primary Rubrics
Appendic A1_Log Book.doc

Appendix_A2_Collaboration.doc


Appendix_B_Model_Presentation.doc

D1_peer evaluation
form.doc




APPENDIX 2 Secondary Rubrics
Appendic A1_Log Book.doc

D1_peer evaluation
form.doc


Cat 1.doc

Cat 2.doc

Cat 3.doc

Cat 4.doc



APPENDIX 3 Secondary Peer Evaluation Guideline
Peer Evaluation Guideline
23072013.docx








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