We need professionals interested in helping students develop effective independent research and project management skills. Each student will research a unique topic that will lead to the development of education and career planning skills.

The student and mentor will work together to explore a particular niche within a professional field. The mentor will help the student interview top professionals in the field, develop a solid career and education plan. If the plan is worthy of support the mentor will aid the student in securing letters of reference and confirmation to back up the plan.

The benchmarks for this project are as follows: A.The effective use of cognitive processes to generate and link knowledge across the disciplines and in a variety of contexts. B. The process of identifying, locating, selecting, and using resource tools to help in analyzing, synthesizing, and communicating information. C. The identification and employment of appropriate tools, techniques, and technologies are essential to all learning processes. D. Students locate, select, and synthesize information from a variety of texts, media, references, and technological sources to acquire and communicate knowledge. E. Use available technology to produce, revise, and publish a variety of works. F. Cite references using various formats (e.g., endnotes, bibliography)

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Career and Education Planning

Student will maintain a folder with all correspondence and products. All students will create multimedia format in which to display their work. Students will write five questions of interest in a field indicating by assessments and outside of a job shadow. They will be conducting research and writing a report/preparing a PowerPoint/presenting an oral report.

Student will write a 300-word letter to mentor. The subject of the letter will be a self-evaluation of the project, including what the student did well, what he would like to have done to improve upon the project, and what the mentor contributed to the process.

Mentor's Role Mentor will aid students in developing and researching questions related to current topics in a chosen career. Mentor will encourage student completion of project goals and edit student work.