A Global Capstone redesigned with students and faculty, not just for them

The Global Capstone asks students to pursue a compelling question of their own. Students wanted more live connection and clearer guidance from instructors. Faculty needed clearer pacing and more structured support for research-heavy projects.

Before redesigning anything, I ran focus groups with GOA's Student Ambassadors, who act as our main user-testing group, and surveyed faculty about where supporting student projects got hard.

Design with the people who use it, not just for them. Students co-designed and co-facilitated the end-of-course showcase sessions where the global student body shares its work. Faculty reviewed prototypes, which led to multiple pathways through the research project instead of one fixed route.

A redesigned Capstone with flexible pathways, structured checkpoints for feedback from teachers, peers and trusted adults, reflection protocols, and assessment tied to GOA's six Core Competencies plus course-specific outcomes.

End-of-Semester 1 student interviews and faculty surveys showed students valued live connection and the flexibility of online learning, and faculty needed a clearer timeline. Faculty also reported the project positively affected students' critical thinking, problem solving, time management and real-world connections.

For Semester 2 we shipped a short overview video of the Capstone process, let teachers adapt pacing to their courses, reinforced opt-in faculty support, and offered asynchronous alternatives to some live sessions. Read more in the articles I wrote about the process: Redesigning the Global Capstone and Assessing Growth and Mastery.

Set measurable targets, such as completion and student satisfaction, before launch so Semester 1 results could be reported as numbers.