In the Master’s in Psychology program core courses, you have been thinking about, journaling about, and talking with others about ideas related to your Capstone Project and your TED-Style Talk. REMEMBER, these are two separate projects.
Now, it is time to start mapping out the details of your Capstone Project! You will also be detailing your TED-style talk in this course, which is a separate assignment and project.
For your Capstone Project, you will want to look back on what you learned from the literature review and/or your research proposal in PSY-535, as well as your Capstone Reflection Journal entries. The insights you gained along the way in this program will enable you to explore an area of interest and apply your creative touch as it relates to the capstone project.
Also, keep in mind that your Capstone Project idea needs to meet these three criteria:
· Your project needs to engage a small group of people.
· It needs to be related to life coaching and/or positive psychology.
· It needs to reflect the work you’ve completed in your literature review.
For example, your Capstone Project could be showing gratitude to a few people in your life by writing and delivering meaningful gratitude letters to them and measuring your level of happiness before and after the visits. Another capstone idea could be designing a brief series of life coaching lessons for young adults and then sharing the information with a small group over a three-week period of time with pre- and post- tests to assess the impact of your work. You could also decide to create a positive psychology podcast series and share it on Youtube or Facebook with a small group of friends and family and ask them for feedback. You are only limited by your imagination and the three criteria mentioned above.
To get clarity on what your Capstone Project might be, you’ll want to review or re-read your earlier journal entries, where you wrote about both your strengths and areas for improvement, to determine how you would like to incorporate your personal journey into the overall capstone project. You journaled about some ideas related to the project in previous courses. It is now time to make your decision about how you want to express these ideas in your Capstone Project.
Over these next three specialization courses (PSY-561, 562, 563), you will work on components of your Capstone Project. In this course, you will map out your project. In the next course, PSY-562, you will refine it. In PSY-563, you will finalize the details so that you are ready to implement your plan and evaluate the outcome in PSY-590. So, this course gives a brief overview of your Capstone Project.
Because you have chosen the life coaching and positive psychology specialization in your program, you also want to keep in mind that your project should be related to some aspect of life coaching and/or positive psychology. Ideally, you will also want your project to reflect one of the 12 life coaching niches that were mentioned previously and that you will review in this assignment. For now, all you need to do is carefully think through which life coaching category best fits you and your career goals.
The best way to choose your life coaching specialization is to again review or re-read your earlier journal entries. Notice what you wrote about both your strengths and areas of interest. When you imagine your professional career, what type of work does it entail? You should also go back over your literature review and see how this research overlaps with areas of personal interest that have emerged in previous courses. With that clarity, you should be able to easily choose the one life coaching specialty that most closely fits your personal and career interests.
Over these next two specialization courses (PSY-561 and 562), you will also work on preparing for and practicing life coaching with an individual client. This is separate from your Capstone Project. Again, for your Capstone Project, you will need to work with a small group of people, preferably in the area of coaching you hope to go into.
Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:
· Choose a life coaching specialty.
· Design projects that promote personal and spiritual growth based on the research in contemporary positive psychology and life coaching.
Background Information
The work you did in your literature review and research proposal from PSY-535 should serve as the foundation for your Capstone Project and your practice life coaching sessions. For this assignment, you will begin mapping the focus of your Capstone Project by filling out the accompanying Word document entitled PSY-561 Preliminary Capstone Project Outline. This preliminary outline will help you to begin pulling your thoughts together on both the Capstone Project and also your selection for the life coaching specialty. Think of this first outline as a brainstorming activity. You will get your basic ideas out on paper, then run these ideas past your instructor in Workshop Two. With that feedback, you will then have the opportunity to solidify your thoughts during the course and develop a more detailed outline in Workshop Five. The goal in this course is to map your Capstone Project in enough detail to begin creating a specific plan with a timeline in the next course.
Please Note: This completed assignment is intended to become part of your Capstone Reflection Journal and should be copied into your Capstone Reflection Journal with the title PSY-561 1.3 Mapping the Project. Only the completed Preliminary Capstone Project Outline (Word) should be submitted for this assignment.
Instructions
1. REMEMBER, this is separate from your TED-style talk assignment. The TED talk and the Capstone Project are two separate projects that you will be working on, refining, and implementing in the final courses. You will complete the TED-style talk in PSY-562 and record it in PSY 563. You will implement your Capstone Project with a small group of people in PSY 590.
2. As you begin to focus and map your Capstone Project in this assignment, review and “honor” the work you have done throughout the psychology program core courses to identify areas of interest to you. Your review of previous work should include:
a. Your Capstone Reflection Journal entries
b. Your literature review from PSY-535
c. Your draft research proposal from PSY-535
3. Review the list of Life Coaching Specialties (Word) (Word document) and choose one that reflects your personal and career interests as it pertains to life coaching. Please be sure that your choice is suitable for a Capstone Project where the principles of positive psychology and life coaching can effectively be applied.
4. To complete this assignment, fill out the Preliminary Capstone Project Outline (Word) (Word document) document as thoroughly as you can at this point. In addition to thinking through your Capstone Project idea and how to incorporate your literature review and principles from positive psychology, you will also identify your life coaching specialty and provide a rationale for that specialty in the document.
a. Your document should be a minimum of three pages long and use APA Style (new tab) formatting for citations and the references list.
b. This completed assignment is intended to become part of your Capstone Reflection Journal and should be copied into your Capstone Reflection Journal as PSY-561 1.3 Mapping the Project.
c. Submit only the Preliminary Capstone Project Outline (Word) document for this assignment.