Navigating Challenges and Celebrating Success: Reflections on AISG’s First Personal Project

Shannie L. – Class of 2027 student

(Image from AISG’s official Wechat account)

On the second Monday after the Lunar New Year break in 2025, AISG hosted its first-ever Personal Project Exhibition. This event is part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Program (MYP) for Grade 10 students. The Personal Project allows students in their last year of MYP to explore their interests, starting in May of Grade 9 and concluding in April of Grade 10.

According to the AISG MYP Coordinator Mr. Ralph Emmerink and the official IB website, this project is designed for approximately 25 hours of independent learning, and students are required to create a product and present it in the exhibition as evidence of their work. The students must submit a 15-page report or a maximum of 10 minutes video and 5 pages of work of everything crucial that they had done.

At the end of Grade 9, students will choose their topic and will be assigned a teacher. They are required to write a learning and product goal. The learning goal explains what the student wants to learn as a result of doing the personal project, and the product goal explains what they will create and the intended purpose. These goals may change as the student slowly understands more about their topic throughout the process.

The Personal Project focuses a lot on which includes communication, social, thinking, self-management, and research. Students are required to choose 2-3 to focus on as evidence of achieving their goals.

According to social media, the Personal Project may seem simple and enjoyable, providing students with a valuable chance to explore their interests.

However, the class of 2027 may not have fully realized this.

According to the IB official website, in the Personal Project process, the student’s report is graded by their supervisor and externally moderated by the IB to ensure a globally consistent standard of excellence, which put simply, means IB looks through the reports of Grade 10 students around the world anonymously to ensure that the gradings are fair and consistent.

However, since this is the first year AISG has implemented the Personal Project, it is not officially graded by the IB and was only graded and moderated by a group of teachers.

While Mr. Emmerink did grade some of the work, he didn’t grade and moderate all of it. This year, the school wasn’t able to submit the current grade 10s work for external moderation as they were only authorised for the MYP this year. However, after further research, it was told by Mr. Emmerink, students will not receive full credit, nor will it appear on their transcript.

Many grade 10 students were unaware of this as evidenced by many anonymous student interviews.

The fact that students will not receive credit led them to believe their work wouldn’t be externally moderated by the IB, therefore their final grades be meaningless. This perception resulted in many Grade 10 students feeling less motivated and struggling to find interest in this project, as they felt disappointed about not receiving full credit for the time and effort they invested.

“This project seemed to shift our interests into mandatory tasks for us, adding on to our workload and creating more stress for us,” said one anonymous student, “I understand that this is mandatory for the MYP and had been created with other purposes in mind but such a long-term project in addition to the same criterions and requirements applied to everyone kind of dulls the ‘personal’ part of ‘personal’ project and our interest in the area of exploration.”

This student summarized a common opinion, which was that all the criterions were too strict, and because everyone had the same guidelines and rubrics , which makes this project pointless. The limitations that the criterions put on students can make their project meaningful and unique to themselves resulted students feeling unmotivated and discouraged

According to the anonymous interviews, they revealed that grade 10 students felt confused about what to do and lacked guidance from someone with prior experience in the project. Many students also faced challenges in selecting a topic initially, as they were uncertain and struggled to identify one that genuinely interested them that was also practical to pursue. Furthermore, many expressed that they thought the Personal Project was overly time-consuming, which was also a major reason for lack of motivation and interest.

This was also one of prominent worries of Mr. Emmerink, as well as the AISG Grade 10 Level Leader Mr. Mario Fuang.

“Because it’s the first year, I was worried that [Grade 10 students] maybe wouldn’t take it too seriously. But once again, I’m very happy and I’m very proud,” Mr. Emmerink stated. “I was very impressed. And I think [they] should be very proud of [themselves]. And the school is very proud of you. Everybody was like, this is awesome.”

Additionally, Mr. Emmerink explained why this year’s Personal Project was not graded by the IB.

In November, two IB officials visited AISG to assess whether the school could be recognized as an official MYP school and were pleased with the current state. However, before AISG can be officially designated as an MYP school, it must complete the Personal Project process.

To make the experience feel as official as possible, Mr. Emmerink aligned the deadlines and rubrics for this year’s Grade 10 students with future MYP requirements to gather feedback and improve the process.

An anonymous student exclaimed humorously how serious Mr. Emmerink was about ensuring everyone submitted their work on time, “he was literally putting bounties on people who passed the deadline on Managebac.” Managebac is an international platform used by IB students to turn in their work, and to receive their grades.

Many students shared valuable insights and constructive feedback about their experience. For example, Mr. Emmerink dedicated class time early in the year for students to work on the project—something unique to AISG. However, one student noted that these sessions were not productive because there were no urgent deadlines at the time. They suggested holding work periods closer to the exhibition and report deadlines when students feel more pressure to work effectively.

When asked to give advice to future Personal Project students, most grade 10 students offered similar advice: to choose a topic that you genuinely enjoy or select something straightforward. One student emphasized, “Make sure you manage your time wisely, pick something simple, and always look at examples and the rubric.”

Likewise, Mr. Fuang also said: “Really try to find a topic that you’re interested in because I think it’s important you want to do it and not to see it as a requirement but rather as an opportunity to do something you’ve always wanted to do or always want to do.”

On April 18, 2025, Personal Project grades were released on ManageBac. Students received grades for three criteria (A, B, and C), based on a standardized process. Mr. Emmerink randomly assigned three teachers to assess two student reports. To ensure objectivity, student names were hidden, and no student was graded by their own supervisor.

Each of the three teachers independently reviews the student’s report and suggests a grade based on the IB’s assessment criteria. They then come together to discuss their reasoning, and the final grade assigned is the result of a consensus reached through this discussion.

Typically, after this part, the Personal Project grades are submitted to the IB for moderation. Ten student reports are selected, re-graded by external moderators, and used to determine whether the entire cohort’s grades will be accepted or adjusted. If the moderators’ grades are lower or higher than the teachers, the whole cohort’s grades may be moderated accordingly.

For the final grading, students usually only get feedback from their supervisor, as the IB only checks 10 reports. Since the IB was not a part of this year’s Personal Project grading, the current grade 10’s was given feedback from the three teachers that graded the student, however, due to technical issues, the feedback didn’t show up on Managebac, but the students could still view their feedback by asking Mr. Emmerink.

In future years, it is unclear whether grades will be released before IB moderation. Regardless, students can always receive feedback through their supervisor, who supports them throughout the project.

Ultimately, the Personal Project is meant to be an engaging opportunity for students to explore their interests and showcase their learning. Although this year’s Grade 10 students were not graded by the IB, each experience was unique and meaningful in its own way. At the end of the article, a short list of tips advised by the current Grade 10 students for the Personal Project is included. Good luck!

 

Tips and advice

• Pick something you’re actually interested in — since this project lasts for about six months, it’s important to stay motivated and make this experience more enjoyable.
• Try to work on your report a bit at a time — it doesn’t need to be a huge amount, but make sure you’re keeping track of what you do, it helps a lot!
• Always refer to the criterions and sample reports provided by Mr. Emmerink when writing your report
• If you have any questions, reach out to your teachers!