What is a "Capstone Experience"?

The Simsbury Capstone Experience is an exciting, year-long opportunity for students to learn in new ways that both showcase and challenge their existing knowledge and skills. Capstone learning is often self-directed, non-traditional, interdisciplinary, and/or community-oriented.

Capstone Features

The Capstone Experience should be...

Student-driven. Students choose their Capstone path and project goals, working increasingly independently to learn, plan, create, and reflect. Peer and adult support exist to facilitate progress.
Inquiry-based. To “inquire” is to question. The Capstone Experience uses students’ existing knowledge and skills as a starting place to dive deeply into an important question, puzzling problem, timely issue, or substantial creative process. Capstone projects should produce new knowledge, ideas, performances, or products.
A “learning stretch.” Capstone challenges students to know and be able to do things beyond what they would typically experience in a high school classroom. This might mean a more hands-on experience, a new type of research, or working closely with a Community Mentor.
An end and a beginning. Capstone must be completed in grades 11 and/or 12 to take advantage of all of the unique interests, strengths, and knowledge students have acquired throughout the K-12 educational experience. As students gain confidence, responsibility for learning shifts to them--an important transition as they look forward to college, work, and adult life.

Capstone Components

Through the Capstone Experience, all students will:

Identify goals for their Capstone inquiry
Plan and propose steps to accomplish their goals
Track and reflect on progress toward goals
Seek feedback and revise their work
Produce a final “product”
Present or demonstrate Capstone accomplishments to an audience beyond the traditional classroom
Complete a final reflection about the process and product of Capstone

Capstone Benefits

The many benefits of the Capstone Experience include...

Opportunity for student choice
Greater student engagement
A chance to pursue a passion in depth
Increased independence, initiative, adaptability, persistence, and confidence
Accomplishments to share in interviews and adult conversation
Preparation for college, career, and community life
Growth, change, and benefit for the larger community as students share their diverse interests and achievements

What are my Capstone Options?

Simsbury embraces a “multiple pathways” approach to Capstone that provides choice and flexibility. Students select one of seven options, nested within three paths, to complete the Capstone Experience.

Paths to Capstone

Which path should I choose?

PATH #1: Course-Supported Capstone

Course-Supported Capstones occur at the end of many course clusters at SHS. Students are encouraged to choose a Course-Supported Capstone if they have a strong interest in a specific academic area that ends with a Capstone Experience (see table of options below). It is important to complete prerequisites for Course-Supported Capstones. Remember to think about Capstone during course registration throughout high school.

All Capstone and Capstone-Optional courses are marked in the Program of Studies and the Student Learning Clusters booklet.

Capstone Courses are marked with a Capstone icon For example:

critical thinker innovator self-directed learner arrows Capstone icon Advanced Placement Art Year, 1 credit, Grade 12
Develop your skills in 2-D, 3-D, or Drawing as you explore different media and approaches. Students will create artwork that reflects their own idea and skills and what they have learned.
The three Art and Design portfolios (2-D Design, 3-D Design, and Drawing) share a basic, two-section structure that requires students to show a fundamental competence and range of understanding in visual concerns and methods. Each section contributes to the final portfolio score, which is on a five-point scale.

Section 1—Sustained Investigation: Students will create a body of work that demonstrates: sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision; sustained investigation of materials, processes, and ideas; synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas; and 2-D, 3-D, or drawing skills. Students will have to document in writing the questions that guided their sustained investigation, and how their sustained investigation should evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by their questions.

Section 2—Selected Works: Students will choose works that demonstrate 2-D, 3-D, or drawing skills, synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. For each work, students will have to describe in writing their ideas, materials, and processes used.

All AP Art courses can be taken for Capstone credit. Prerequisite: 2.5 credits in Art

critical thinker Collaborator innovator Communicator self-directed learner arrows Global Citizen Capstone icon Computer Science Principles (II) Year, 1 credit, Grades 10, 11, 12
This course is designed to introduce students to the principles of computer science. Students will be exposed to the central ideas of computer science computational thinking and how computing changes the world. Students will develop and implement algorithms to create computer programs. Students will learn how to responsibly use computer programming. Prerequisite: Algebra 1

It is important to remember that the Capstone Experience must occur during grades 11 and/or 12. Additionally, 1.0 credits must be devoted to Capstone. Courses cannot fulfill two requirements at once.

PATH #2: Student-Driven Capstone

Some students find that their interests and strengths are not well-matched to an existing Course-Driven Capstone. For that reason, SHS provides an option for a Student-Driven Capstone, which can be designed around any topic. Either the SHS Capstone course or AP Research support students on a more independent Capstone journey. In these courses, students work to accomplish their self-directed goals with the regular support of peers, an SHS teacher, and--if they choose--a Faculty Advisor or Community Mentor. SHS Capstone is offered as two semester courses which may be taken in grades 11 and/or 12. AP Research must be taken as a year-long course, and students must have achieved a passing score on the College Board AP Seminar exam to enroll.

Student-driven Capstone options are described in the “Capstone Experience” section in the Program of Studies.

PATH #3: Experiential Capstone

If students are excited to pursue the hands-on work of an internship, either inside SHS or out in the larger community, this third path is the best Capstone option. Students who intern within SHS work closely with Faculty Advisors in roles that include student teaching, peer tutoring, and tech support. Students who have strong connections in the community may decide to work closely with a Community Mentor in local non-profit organizations and businesses. Students seeking internship as Capstone should examine options on the School Counseling page and seek suggestions from a school counselor. Completed application and approval from the Capstone Coordinator are required, so be sure to plan ahead!

Click on the above graphic to go to SHS's School Counseling page.

The Simsbury Public Schools guides all students toward mastery of the Vision of a Graduate competencies. The Capstone Experience supports students as they continue to build these six competencies:

	Critical Thinking
	Communication
	Collaboration
	Self-Directed Learning
	Innovation
	Global Citizenship

Please reach out to the Capstone Coordinator or a School Counselor with any questions or concerns about your Capstone Experience.