BOARD
For my junior year project, I decided to combine my experience working with kids, interest in mental health, and entrepreneurial spirit to complete a two-part project called BOARD. My goal is to delve deeper into the complexities of having kids return from several years of virtual, online learning back to in-person learning, as well as create a solution. What do they think of returning back to school? What problems do kids encounter during this transition? Most importantly, what can I do to solve them?
Part one dealt with the first two questions: what do kids think of returning back to school, and what struggles have they been met with? I returned to my old middle school to find out. Through sending out surveys, observing classes, and talking with students and teachers, I was able to narrow down the myriad of problems to a singular denominator: a lack of time. Time to sleep, do homework, and spend time with friends. During the pandemic, extracurriculars were canceled, homework cut in half, and there was no commuting between activities. There is no need for the skill of time management when we all had too much time. However, upon returning to in-person learning, it became clear to particularly students that instead of an excess of time, there was now a deficit.
That became the direction for part two. How do we help kids relearn time management? After researching, talking with behavioral science experts like Dr. Descartes Li of UCSF, and getting input from students, I came up with BOARD, a revolutionary method to organize and accomplish goals and tasks.
