Instructions
Clear Purpose and Description
The topic of your project is the organizational area that you have chosen to improve. Your purpose is to carry out one of the project activities at your prospective site that would focus on the topic you have chosen. From your reading of the Doctoral Capstone Guide for SoE EdD Learners’s description of the different forms of acceptable activities for capstone projects, write a brief statement of the purpose of your capstone project.
The guide lists acceptable activities, including one activity that is open only to learners who enrolled before a certain date.
The acceptable activities are:
o Analyze a policy.
o Evaluate a program. (I will be conducting an Evaluation of the Restorative Practice Program)
o Plan an organizational improvement.
o Implement an improvement.
o Conduct a needs assessment.
o Carry out an action research project resulting in a five-chapter dissertation (open only to learners who started the program before April of 2015).
Other activities that meet the criteria for a capstone project may be suggested by learners and approved by faculty.
This assignment asks you to write a purpose statement in the following format:
“The purpose of the project is to [insert one of the activities] in [describe your organization (for example, a school, college, agency, department, or such)] that is designed to improve [insert the topic].”
Using this example, a possible purpose statement might be: “The purpose of the project is to conduct a needs assessment in an urban community college that is designed to improve the admissions process.”
Once you have stated the topic, explained how it fits your specialization, and stated the purpose, you will describe the capstone project itself and the product it will generate. Your description should be brief (up to 200 words) and should provide little detail at this stage. Your description of the capstone project should elucidate how the project activity relates to the topic, and should make a beginning reference to the product that will result.
Using the example above, a project description might be, “The project will carry out a needs assessment on the admissions process at an urban community college in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness with which applicants are selected. The product of the project will be a report containing an analysis of the situation and a data-supported suggestion for improvement.”
*Please see below for detail information regarding my organization and Doctoral Capstone Topic:
My Capstone Project Title:
“A Systematic Evaluation of the Restorative Practices in a High School Setting”
My Topic: (Organizational area that needs improvement)
Student suspensions, behavioral referrals out of the classroom, expulsions, student fights, and general student misbehavior
Organization Information:
Hazelwood Central High School is one of many public educational institutes located in North St. Louis County, Missouri. It was established in 1966 with a rapid growth of student population, forcing a shift from a primary to a secondary level educational facility. The school has grown into one of the most competitive schools in the districts. It offers an opportunity for all students to perform well with teachers playing a key role in developing student’s capabilities to enhance their performance in school. The student base that has an enrolment of approximately 1, 960 is 75% African Americans with the remaining percentage split between Hispanic, Asian, and White Americans. The teaching and administrative staff is racially balanced with 80% having advanced educational degrees and many sharing a progressive approach to learning and teaching.
Hazelwood Central High School mission statement is to provide guidance and support all students with personal, social, emotional, and academic growth, and to enhance post-secondary choices. Its vision is to ensure that students acquire the skills and knowledge to graduate and make appropriate future choices that enable them to integrate with the 21st-century economy successfully. The school is well positioned to achieve its vision and mission; however, the institution is experiencing high levels of student truancy. However, the issue and increase in suspension rates, behavioral referrals out of the classroom, expulsions, student fights and general student misbehavior, has lead the Hazelwood Central High School to install and establish “Restorative Practices” to improve in these areas.