Revisit Week 2, where you thought about a decision that impacted many stakeholders and had major consequences. Perhaps it was a major expenditure from the capital budget such as the remodeling of a middle school building to provide additional space for the science labs. A decision shares some aspects of Capstone proposal problem, but when you choose your Capstone problem it should be serious, pervasive, and sustained. The Capstone problem should be situated between the low level “annoyance-in-the-workplace” problem and the high level “research-worthy” doctoral dissertation problem. It ought to be possible to choose, scrutinize, and reframe the Capstone problem and potential solutions through various perspectives. The Capstone problem must not take you too long to solve because you owe a solution(s) in Week 7. An example of a suitable problem could be teen pregnancy. The topic is controversial because some of the solutions will involve teaching about safer sexual practices versus abstinence-only education.
Write a reflection paper in which you describe your problem while answering all the following questions:
What is the problem in education that you have chosen to study and solve?
Who is suffering the effects of this problem?
What serious consequences will happen if the problem does not get solved? If there are no serious consequences, spending time on the problem is not justified.
Does the problem interest a wide variety of stakeholders at your workplace and/or in your community? $1
Is it a problem that others in your area of specialization have written about incredible sources like journal articles, e-books, and trade publications? If you need numbers or statistics, you might find it helpful to refer to the census or government websites, school district test score data etc. Perhaps you will need to refer to workplace policies or laws. These are just examples of sources. You will need to support all claims you make with appropriate sources. There is no place for personal opinion or storytelling in your evidence.
When you read sources and discover that others are having a similar problem, write about the similarities and differences between their situation and yours.
How will you make the chosen problem seem engaging to others? You need to make others care about the problem through various means of communication -written, oral, and through technology. You can do this by choosing a problem that is controversial in itself, by presenting opposing views on the problem, or by pointing out what is not yet known about this problem. By doing these things, you are making a case to the stakeholders that there is a need to study this problem.
If you are not working in education, you should use a scenario that has happened to an acquaintance who works in education.
Length: 5-7 pages, not including title and reference pages
References: Include a minimum of 3 credible resources appropriate to your specialization, of which at least 1 should be from a scholarly journal.
