This guide has been adapted from the PDF and Google Doc used prior to 2018. The information here is most current and most correct. Those older guides might be interesting to some of you as examples of iterative instruction, though. You can see the evolution of ideas and language.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Pareto Project is an iterative form of project-based learning that was inspired by 20Time and Genius Hour. It invites students to design and explore meaningful, personalized projects during the school year, with about 20% of the time we would otherwise dedicate to course work instead dedicated to Pareto Projects.
IT’S ABOUT TIME: THE 80-20 RULE
The site Better Explained offers a crash course in the Pareto principle, which is also known as the 80-20 rule. It isn’t exactly a rule, however; it is really an observation that “most things in life (effort, reward, output) are not distributed evenly — some contribute more than others.”
For this project, you are going to bring one of your passions to the forefront of your academic work. You will dedicate only about 20% of your time to this project, but it will add a considerable amount to your growth, enjoyment, and overall learning — if not 80% exactly, certainly enough to make this one of the most meaningful activities of the school year.
The first step (out of five outlined below) will be to plan out the 20% you will dedicate to this project. The plan will probably shift as you begin the work, but you will retain a significant degree of control over how you spend your time in and out of class. Your choices must be deliberate and productive.
As much as any other aspect of this course, these projects will require you to think interstitially, with a sense of your learning as an ongoing, substructural thing. Read this letter again for a reminder of what that means:
ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
This project will be folded into the GAP assessment process. As always, growth, collaboration, and self-monitoring matter much more than the objective quality of the project itself.
The Same Song
A copy of the step-by-step guide to assessment, plus much more, can be found in the following post:
Keep any new iterations or version handy. Here is an updated version from 2024 that delineates criteria more specifically:
PROJECT STEPS
The following five steps will not necessarily happen in this exact sequence. Student choice and self-efficacy are paramount. Remember, though, that we must build critical thinking and collaboration into those choices, just like we do in the rest of our learning.
STEP #1: TIME TO UNDERSTAND
Pareto Projects are a slow burn. There will be a course calendar with suggested checkpoints and deadlines, but those dates will be somewhat fluid. The goal is an authentic experience that leads to a meaningful product; we will inevitably need to adjust our timelines.
Your first step is to take stock of the time you have available to you. This is an inventory of study halls, Saturday mornings, sports commitments, etc — all the responsibilities (and, honestly, irresponsibilities) that consume your time. You must be organized to get the most out of this Pareto Project. Organization is the skill that frames the rest. Whether you use a chronodex or a daily planner, the only way you’ll accomplish the goals you set for this project is if you dedicate the necessary time.
You want a project that fits your schedule. If you must limit your focus during a sports season, for instance, you might have a chance to be more ambitious later. You might break a larger goal into multiple, smaller projects. And, in the spirit of makerspace thinking, you will all probably be revamping, refining, and sometimes rebooting your project along the way.
Remember, too, that this project will comprise only 20% or so of the overall work expected of you. It is not meant to add stress to your lives. It is meant to empower you.
STEP #2: GOOD IDEA SMITHING
First, recognize that there are some parameters for this project. Total freedom would be paralyzing, and you need parameters to focus you. Remember, too, that this is a Humanities makerspace — you’re going to be writing about this project, reflecting on your progress, publishing updates, etc., which means the project needs to have some depth to it.
What you really need is inspiration. That, too, will focus you. Fortunately, inspiration can be manufactured, often through a careful study of what others have done before. 20time.org has a collection of student projects of all kinds, but you should start here, with your predecessors’ work:
One way to focus your inspiration into a good idea is a “bad idea factory,” which is an idea borrowed from 20time.org. You come up with obviously bad ideas, write them on a whiteboard, and use those obviously bad ideas to generate better ones. You can compete to come up with the worst possible project, and by honing your sense of what doesn’t work, you’ll discover what might.
Just as useful is a workshop or atelier approach: Small groups discuss their project ideas under teacher supervision, and then we use their understanding to help others in class and online. Remember that this is exactly how feedback in our makerspace is designed to function:
Again, your goal here in Step #2 is to find an idea that inspires you. It needs to sustain you for at least ten weeks, and it should bring you excitement each Friday, when you are given time to work on the project. You can work alone or in groups, within your period or with students in other classes — there are few limitations. What limitations there are, we discover as we workshop your ideas.
Some years, you will be asked to turn your idea into a 60-second pitch. This kind of “elevator pitch” protocol is common in brainstorming sessions, because it forces you to focus your concept. The folks at 20time.org envision it as a scenario:
You find yourself in an elevator with the one person who has the power to make your project a reality. You have the time it takes to get to the top floor to sell her on your idea. Do it.
Since we don’t have easy access to an elevator, we’ll use our classroom space to pitch ideas to each other. If possible, we’ll build an interstitial hub for that, too. Reddit worked once, so that’s an option; Google+ Communities were successful one year, too. You can also make this elevator pitch to anyone who can act as that “one person who has the power to make your project a reality.” Talk to parents, administrators, other teachers, neighbors — let them hear your pitch and give you feedback, too.
If you find yourself feeling lost at this stage, that’s probably a good thing. You’ll find your way with help.
STEP #3: BLUEPRINT
Once you have an idea you can work with, you can set up a provisional blueprint. The operative word there is provisional, because your blueprint is subject to change, but you want as solid a plan as you can develop at this stage.
Complete the Google Form that will be assigned to you through Google Classroom. Look over the questions first. Then answer them in a separate document. Copy and paste your answers into the form when you’re ready.
Blueprint Handout: https://tinyurl.com/pareto-simple-doc
Blueprint Form: https://forms.gle/Upv965z9va54NDg5A
That form is adapted from this older version, which was based on the template shared by Kevin Brookhouser at 20time.org. You’ll note that the required blueprint does not include self-imposed deadlines. We will be setting those in class, according to our other studies, as your projects take shape.
Through this blueprint, you can see that you set your own deadlines, predict where you’ll be by certain dates, account for some of the resources you’ll need over that time, and so on. The more specific you are now, the easier you’ll find it to adjust your project later; and to that end, I strongly suggest you invite others to help you with this step. Share your blueprints online and in the classroom, ask for constructive criticism, and focus on the process. The presentation doesn’t matter (yet).
STEP #4: A WIDER AUDIENCE
This step is primarily about getting your project to its potential audience. Whatever platforms you use, the goal will be the same: to share your creations and creativity with more people than just your teachers and classmates. We will almost certainly display projects in the iLC and display cases in the building, and there will be plenty of space in Room 210 to showcase your work. But the fastest way to reach the greatest number of people is through digital platforms.
You will discover through trial and error which of the available digital platforms are necessary, helpful, etc, for your project, and we’ll experiment as often as possible. You might upload videos to YouTube, record podcasts on Soundcloud, or post pictures to Instagram, among dozens of other possibilities. Find your audience. The search should help you to read more widely and more often, which is always a good thing. Remember that the barrier to publishing and reaching that audience is nearly gone — part of the “golden age of the essay” that Paul Graham predicted in 2004.
This step is about audience, and that almost always means more than just the people who share the classroom with you. The Internet is a bustling place.
STEP #5: THE PROJECT ITSELF
The last step? Work on your project.
Set aside 20% (or more, if you can afford it) of your time. Create something truly meaningful. Look for a way to have the kind of aesthetic experience that Ken Robinson describes in his video on changing education. Wake yourself up to that kind of learning.
When we reach the end of the process, you’ll make a decision about what to present and how to present it. You might not present, and that’s okay. You might share your work online, and you might share it in class. You might, if the project is permitted to be entirely personal, not share anything but the reflective and metacognitive framework of the process.
This course is all about the learning, which is why grade abatement rewards you as much for the process as any final product. It’s okay to be lost or frustrated. It’s okay to have fun, too. Keep asking questions and collaborating with each other, and the rest will take care of itself. You and your peers will eventually have documentaries to watch, short stories to read, cooking tutorials to follow, and dozens of other unexpected and unexpectedly creative things to enjoy.
We will discuss the specifics of your end-of-project goals as your projects take shape. Again, some projects will be intensely personal, and that might limit the final presentation’s audience; others may be a call to action, and we may want to set up the auditorium for a speech.
Ask questions about these projects below — not your specific ones, but the overall purpose or process. Let this be the hub for understanding how we will do this.
I’ll leave you with a wish for good luck and a little more inspiration. First, from Neil Postman:
We may take as our guide here John Dewey’s observation that the content of a lesson is the least important thing about learning… [that] the most important thing one learns is always something about how one learns. As Dewey wrote in another place, we learn what we do.
— Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
And then from Nikola Tesla, patron saint of science and innovation:
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
— Nikola Tesla
Finally, here is Piet Hein, describing this kind of process perfectly:
After all, what is art? Art is the creative process and it goes through all fields. Einstein’s theory of relativity – now that is a work of art! Einstein was more of an artist in physics than on his violin…
Art is this: Art is the solution of a problem which cannot be expressed explicitly until it is solved.
— Piet Hein
Cover art to DJ Signify’s Sleep No More. Listen to “Kiddie Litter,” featuring Sage Francis, here. That song underscores, in a dark and surreal and imagistic way, the idea of being anaesthetized. Compare it to “Take Me Home,” by Brother Ali, which is a song about creating things and feeling pretty good about doing that.