A few months ago, we were discussing ways to improve our "Core" programme in the MYP when our Personal Project Coordinator observed that out of all of the criteria in the MYP, the Projects criteria are perhaps the most "foreign". The subject criteria remains the same throughout the MYP; even though the command terms increase in sophistication, the criteria itself does not change. But because the projects are usually only introduced in the years in which students complete them, students don't have time to develop their understanding of the criteria over the five years of the programme; this is especially true since the criteria for the Community and Personal Project are no longer fully aligned.
So that got us thinking about how we could introduce the project criteria earlier in the programme, in a low stakes way. By using the projects objectives to structure independent inquiries, we can better prepare students for the higher stakes inquiry that is required later in the programme. This model will also allow us to more effectively consolidate the elements of the programme (ATLs, Service Learning, the Learner Profile), rather than treating them as discrete elements.
I have developed a project scaffold for MYP 2 and 4 (using the Community and Personal Project objectives, respectively). Included in the scaffold are one or two ATL skills which align with each objective, along with some tools or strategies that can be used to explicitly teach those skills. Many of those strategies are Project Zero Visible Thinking Routines, and some come from the Community Project and Personal Project books I co-authored with Laura England. These resources can be downloaded here.
Logistics: We have a timetabled "Core" lesson on a Wednesday (once a week in Grades 9 & 10, once a fortnight in Grades 6-8). These projects are designed to fit into that 55-minute period, with some flexibility to collapse time at different points in the year for different elements of the projects, as needed. However, projects could easily be developed within a homeroom or advisory session or even in the subject classroom.