Catalyst Project Syllabus: 2017-2018

Singapore American School High School

Instructors:

Bob Helmer Vicky Colorado Matt Hughes Zach Evans Lawrence Shackelford
rhelmer@sas.edu.sg vcolorado@sas.edu.sg mhughes@sas.edu.sg zevans@sas.edu.sg sshackelford@sas.edu.sg
C of I: 6360-6596 H312: 6360-6523 C of I: H103: 6363-6639 H215:

Stacey Jensen Lee Ann Spillane Martin Williams Coordinator:

sjensen@sas.edu.sg laspillane@sas.edu.sg mwilliams@sas.edu.sg Dennis Steigerwald
C of I: TBD HS 421: H214 dsteigerwald@sas.edu.sg
C of I: 6360-6653

Course Description:
The SAS Catalyst Project represents the pinnacle of academic, intellectual, and
social-emotional learning experiences at SAS. Students are empowered to dive deep into an
area of interest or passion as teachers provide student centered guidance, support, and
extraordinary flexibility. Instruction focuses on SASs DSLOs (Communication, Collaboration,
Critical Thinking, and Creativity) development and assessment within authentic contexts, i.e.,
work studies, apprenticeships, internships, scientific research, etc. As students design, plan,
and conduct their projects, they will be taught how to employ the rich regional and global
professional network; starting with working with a mentor from a respective academic field or
profession. The scope of an SAS Catalyst Project is limited only by the students imagination
(merging their interests and passions with their academic learning) where they are given a
unique opportunity to demonstrate their fullest potential.

Desired Student Learning Outcomes (DSLOs):

Character: Character engages both the heart and mind, how one experiences and
expresses self with others, and ultimately helps to improve the world around them.
Collaboration: Collaboration is the ability to work effectively towards a common goal in
the process of shared creation while optimizing group and individual contributions within
diverse teams.
Communication: Communication is the ability to effectively exchange ideas and
information through oral, written, digital and creative expression on interpersonal and
global level.
Creativity and Innovation: Creativity and Innovation are the ability to integrate and
combine ideas while following a passion or curiosity to develop a useful and novel idea,
process, or product.
Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is the ability to access and analyze key information to
develop responses to complex problems and questions that may have no clear answer.
Cultural Competence: Having an open mind while actively seeking to understand
cultural norms and expectations of others, and leveraging this gained knowledge to
interact, communicate and work effectively in diverse environments.
Self Awareness and Application: (Core Knowledge and Application): Self Awareness
is the ability to perceive one's strengths, interests, needs, and constraints in order to
apply them when completing self-directed projects.
Assessments: Assessments can be formative or summative in nature.
Formative assessments are used to inform instruction and guide learning; they occur before
or after instruction. Formative assessments will be ongoing; including exploring, framing,
designing, managing, revising, or implementing projects.
Summative assessments are used to evaluate or judge student achievement and occur after
learning. Students will be summatively assessed at the end of each module, as well as, their
project using the following system:
Portfolio in Progress Artifacts:
Self Awareness, Exploration, and Discovery (SNIC Diagram)
Project Research and SMART Goals
Networking and Mentor Development
Project Canvas and Learning Framework
Project Management (with Milestone Artifacts)
Showcase Presentation
Ongoing Reflections:
Character (Strengths, Challenges, Pivots, etc.)
Cultural Competence

Semester Grade Breakdown: Course grades are determined by trending data for individual
benchmarks. Individual assessments (e.g., tests, quizzes, projects) are out of a 9-point scale
(A+, A, B+, B, C+, C, D+, D, F). Percentages will not be used.

Portfolio Artifacts that Assess Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and

Creativity (60%)

Cumulative Catalyst Project Presentation (20%)

Self Awareness and Applications (20%)

*Non-Academic Factors: Grades are intended to reflect achievement of essential learning

outcomes in a course. Non-academic factors of Collaboration, Responsibility, and Learning
Attitude will be assessed using the High School Learning Behaviors Rubric and reported on a
frequency basis but will not impact student grades...

Behavioral Expectations:
All participants must adhere to the SAS Cornerstones (honesty, respect, tolerance,
responsibility, and kindness) for all on and off campus activities.
*All off campus activities must be pre-approved; including a completed and approved
permission form.

Schoology and Calendar:

Student materials and calendar announcements can be found primarily in the Schoology based
Catalyst Course (including the activity calendar), and for reference, on the SAS Catalyst Google
Site.
 Absences:
Mandatory class meetings and corresponding activities are posted in the Google Calendar and
all handouts and course resources are linked to the Google Site. Missed deadlines during
absences will be handled individually.

Submission of Late Summative Work:

It is the responsibility of the student to meet all deadlines. It is also the students responsibility
to proactively talk to the teacher when a summative assessment may be late. If the work is not
submitted, the teacher may assign an Incomplete or NC (no credit) to denote a missing
assessment (which calculates as a zero on a nine point scale). If the student fails to submit
missing work for two academic weeks after the course ends, the incomplete will change to an
F for the course.

Academic Dishonesty:
Academic dishonesty, or plagiarism, does not allow the teacher to clearly assess the students
learning. Any form of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated and may result in a No Credit.

Additional consequences are at the discretion of the administration. Depending on the

severity of the offense, any incident may skip to a more serious consequence.
1st offense: Reported to the office to be added to student discipline log; teacher/PLC
decides consequences and contacts parent. Student will meet with administrator, noting
next offense will result in Saturday Suspension.
2nd offense: Reported to the office to be added to student discipline log; No Credit on
work and student will serve one day of Saturday Suspension. Student and parents will
meet with administrator to sign academic honesty contract, noting next offense will result
in Out of School Suspension (OSS).
3rd offense: Reported to office to be added to student discipline log; No Credit on work;
two day OSS; loss of travel during Interim Semester; student and parents meet with
Superintendent and HS administration for pre-expulsion hearing.
4th offense: Report to office and student is recommended for expulsion.

HS Grading Policy - Academic Integrity.