Academic Programs Overview | Course Work | Supervised Fieldwork and Advisement | Integrative Master's Project
The Integrative Master's Project (IMP) is one of the three major components of your degree requirements. As the culminating component, it is expected to be a significant, academically rigorous body of work that integrates many facets of your experiences at Bank Street and in the field, and applies theoretical knowledge to your current and future work as an educator or educational leader. The process of writing the IMP is intended to further your professional growth through inquiry, reflection, and integration.
When you have completed significant amounts of your supervised fieldwork/advisement and course work, you are eligible to begin working on this third requirement for completing a degree program at Bank Street College. The Integrative Master's Project can take the form of an Independent Study, Portfolio, or one of the three Semester-Based IMP Options.
The Independent Study is a significant, original work that you initiate, often growing out of a meaningful assignment in a course or an idea, question or experience rooted in a fieldwork or work setting. When you choose this option, you create the question or topic to research or elaborate in greater depth. The independent study offers opportunities to explore issues and develop a curriculum, a case study, a project, a program, a critical review of literature, or creative instructional approaches. This choice includes the possibility of writing literature for children and researching its use with children. Students work with a faculty mentor or, with approval, with a person outside the College who has expertise in the particular area of study. In general, the Independent Study is completed over the course of one year. Completed Independent Studies are housed in the Bank Street Library, where they can be read and borrowed by students and faculty as well as circulated through interlibrary loan outside the College.
The Portfolio option allows you to work closely with an assigned mentor and, in monthly group meetings, with a small group of peers over the course of a full academic year. You must submit a Portfolio Application by the end of June. If you are selected as a participant in the Portfolio project, you work with your mentor to identify a theme that is highly relevant to your personal growth and professional development. The portfolio is developed through an emergent process of collecting documents and objects, called artifacts, which are significant markers of pivotal experiences in your professional and personal development. You will write a reflective essay to introduce the five artifacts and themes, a caption to accompany each artifact, and a conclusion. All students present their portfolios to mentors, peers, friends, and family the evening before Graduation.
Registration policies and procedures for the three Semester-Based IMP options are the same as they are for classes.
Description: Each candidate will work with an assigned faculty mentor to identify an educational problem or concern within their own work situation, to investigate that problem and to generate an action plan to move toward resolution. In some cases, it may be possible to implement an intervention. In other circumstances, a detailed action plan will be the outcome based on discussion and approval of the Mentor. A group of up to six candidates will meet together a minimum of four scheduled times during the semester-long inquiry project. While the Site-based Inquiry may be highly individual, it is also possible that two or more candidates in the group may wish to work together on a similar problem or inquiry.
Faculty and current students click here for detailed information on the Site-Based Inquiry option.
Candidates looking to explore a particular issue or problem in collaboration with both a faculty member and their peers may elect this option. The issue will be presented in advance as a particular research or policy concern of a faculty member. The faculty member and the group will help each candidate in the group identify a particular aspect of the issue to investigate and, together, determine a collective format in which to coordinate and present the findings. The group will meet together a minimum of four scheduled times during the semester. The mentor and group members, individually and collectively, will communicate (via email and/or phone) in the intervening times.
Faculty and current students click here for detailed information on the Collaborative Student-Faculty Inquiry option.
Candidates may complete this option whether in the immediate New York City area or at a distance (the latter through telephone and on-line communication).
Description: Each student works with an assigned faculty mentor to design an essay that is based on existing program specific prepared questions. These questions are designed to help students think and write about the salient and significant issues pertaining to their chosen area of study, while drawing on and integrating knowledge gained in courses and field experiences. This option is designed to provide structure and focus with maximum flexibility. Together, mentor and candidate may adapt questions to support the professional growth, interests, and current work situation of the student. With the mentor's approval, the candidate may create his/her own
question(s). Mentors will be assigned within programs and pathways.
Faculty and current students click here for detailed information on the Mentored Directed Essay option.
Click here for Mentored Directed Essay Questions.