Overview
- Weight: 20% of your AP Seminar score (split equally between IRR and TMP)
- Individual Research Report (IRR): 1,200 words, College Board scored
- Team Multimedia Presentation (TMP): 8-10 minutes plus oral defense, teacher scored
- Team size: 3-5 students
- Submission deadline: April 30, 11:59 p.m. ET
- Required checkpoint: Source log and conversation with teacher during research phase
The Art of Collaborative Inquiry: Where Individual Brilliance Meets Collective Wisdom
Here's what PT1 is really about: learning that the biggest questions in our world can't be answered by lone geniuses. They require teams of thinkers who each bring unique expertise but can also transcend their individual perspectives to create something bigger.
Think of your team as an intellectual jazz ensemble. Each member plays a different instrument (lens), masters their own part, but the magic happens when you improvise together. The economic lens might lay down the baseline, the social lens adds harmony, the environmental lens introduces countermelody, and suddenly you're creating music none of you could make alone.
Choosing your issue is like selecting a song worth playing. It needs enough complexity to showcase each instrument, enough tension to create interest, and enough relevance to make the audience care. Skip the simple melodies ("Is pollution bad?") and find the complex compositions ("How do economic incentives and environmental justice intersect in urban planning?").
As you dive into your lens, think like a method actor preparing for a role. Don't just study the economic perspective - inhabit it. See the world through those assumptions. But here's the crucial part: also note what this lens can't see. Every perspective illuminates and obscures. Your job is to become expert enough to know both.
Individual Research Report (IRR) Strategies
Choosing and Developing Your Lens Your lens is more than just a topic area - it's a specific way of viewing the issue. If your team is examining social media's impact on democracy, "economic lens" is too broad. Instead, consider "advertising revenue models" or "market concentration effects." The more specific your lens, the deeper your analysis can go.
Work with your team to ensure lenses are distinct but complementary. They should overlap enough to speak to each other but not so much that you're duplicating effort. Map out these relationships early - it will make synthesis much easier later.
Research Depth vs. Breadth Quality beats quantity in source selection. Aim for 8-12 excellent sources rather than 20 superficial ones. Include foundational texts that establish key concepts, recent scholarly articles that show current debates, and credible real-world applications. Your source variety demonstrates sophisticated understanding.
Read sources actively, always considering how they relate to your team's question. Keep notes on connections to teammates' lenses - these insights become crucial during synthesis. The checkpoint conversation with your teacher isn't just a requirement; it's an opportunity to refine your research direction.
Writing Your IRR Structure your report to build understanding progressively. Start by explaining your lens and its relevance to the team question. Don't assume readers understand why an economic perspective matters - make it explicit.
When analyzing sources, go beyond summary. Explain how different authors within your lens agree or disagree. What assumptions do they share? Where do they diverge? This analysis shows you understand the conversation within your perspective, not just individual sources.
Your comparative analysis should acknowledge complexity. If examining perspectives, don't create false binaries. Show how viewpoints exist on spectrums, how they overlap, and where nuances lie. The best reports reveal subtleties that simplistic analysis misses.
The Synthesis Lab: Where Perspectives Collide and Solutions Emerge
Becoming Teachers, Not Just Experts After your IRRs, the real work begins. You're not just reporting findings - you're teaching your teammates to see through your lens. This is harder than it sounds. Can you help the artist understand economic models? Can the scientist grasp sociological frameworks? Your teaching ability directly impacts your team's synthesis quality.
Think teaching rounds, not data dumps. Round 1: Core concepts using analogies and examples. "The economic lens is like looking at society as a giant marketplace where..." Round 2: Nuances and complications. "But here's where it gets interesting - not everything follows market logic because..." Round 3: Connection sessions. "Notice how my economic incentive argument relates to Sarah's point about social pressure?"
The Magic of True Synthesis Here's where teams succeed or fail. Weak synthesis sounds like: "Economics says X, sociology says Y, biology says Z." Strong synthesis sounds like: "The economic drive for efficiency creates social structures that biology reveals as unsustainable, suggesting we need solutions that align incentives with both social cohesion and ecological limits."
Create synthesis artifacts together. Mind maps where lens connections become visible. Tension charts showing where perspectives clash productively. Evolution diagrams showing how understanding deepened through lens interaction. That moment when you realize the environmental lens's crisis is actually caused by the economic lens's solution, which emerged from the historical lens's context? That's synthesis gold.
Team Multimedia Presentation (TMP) Excellence
Argument Construction Your team's solution should emerge logically from synthesized lens insights. Don't force a predetermined conclusion - let your research guide you. The strongest arguments acknowledge trade-offs and limitations while still advocating for specific action.
Structure your argument to show how lens synthesis led to your solution. "The economic analysis revealed X, while the social perspective showed Y. Together, these insights suggest Z." This approach demonstrates genuine collaborative thinking rather than parallel individual work.
Presentation Design Design slides that enhance team cohesion. Use consistent templates while allowing individual personality. Visual metaphors can powerfully illustrate synthesis - Venn diagrams, flow charts, or conceptual models that show lens integration.
Balance individual expertise with team unity. While each member might lead certain sections, avoid rigid divisions. Hand off smoothly between speakers, reference each other's points, and show genuine team dynamic. Practiced transitions show true collaboration.
Equal Participation Equal doesn't mean identical. Play to team members' strengths while ensuring everyone contributes substantively. The quieter analyzer might excel at explaining complex synthesis, while the dynamic speaker handles engaging openings. What matters is that everyone's contribution is valuable and visible.
Practice until handoffs feel natural. Use verbal cues ("As Maya explained about economic impacts...") to reinforce connections. During Q&A, support each other - if a teammate struggles, others can respectfully add insights.
Oral Defense Mastery
Questions will test your collaborative process, not just content knowledge. Prepare specific examples of how team members influenced each other's thinking. "Originally, I focused only on individual privacy, but Jordan's legal lens helped me understand systemic privacy infrastructure."
Practice explaining decisions collectively: "We considered three potential solutions. The environmental lens favored Option A, while the technological perspective preferred Option B. Through discussion, we realized Option C addressed both concerns while adding put in placeation feasibility."
Be honest about collaboration challenges and how you overcame them. "We initially struggled to connect the historical and scientific lenses, but creating a timeline of technological development helped us see how past patterns inform current possibilities."
Time Management Reality
Weeks 1-2: Issue exploration and team formation. Don't rush - a well-chosen issue and compatible team matter more than starting quickly.
Weeks 3-4: Lens assignment and initial research. Meet regularly to ensure lenses remain distinct but connected. Start your source log immediately.
Weeks 5-6: Deep individual research and IRR writing. Schedule your checkpoint conversation. Share interesting findings with teammates to maintain connection.
Week 7: IRR finalization and submission. Begin teaching sessions immediately after.
Weeks 8-9: Intensive synthesis work. This is where real collaboration happens. Block out significant time for team discussions.
Weeks 10-11: Solution development and presentation creation. Design together, even if individuals create specific slides.
Week 12: Practice, refine, and deliver. Multiple full run-throughs are essential.
The Reality Check: Common Traps and How to Avoid Them
The "Fake Synthesis" Trap: I see this constantly - teams staple individual findings together and call it synthesis. That's not synthesis; that's a compilation. Real synthesis creates new understanding. If your conclusion could have been written without team collaboration, you haven't synthesized. Push until you're saying things like, "Only by combining the historical context with economic analysis could we see why social solutions alone fail."
The "Alpha Dog" Problem: There's always one team member who naturally takes charge. Sometimes that's helpful; often it's destructive. Create explicit structures: rotating meeting leaders, timed speaking rounds, "no immediate responses" rules where everyone must think before reacting. The quiet team member often has the insight that unlocks everything - make space for their voice.
The "Solution from Nowhere" Disaster: Your solution must emerge organically from synthesis, not appear like a rabbit from a hat. Track your logic: "Because the economic lens showed X, and the social lens revealed Y, and the environmental lens demonstrated Z, we realized any solution must address..." If you can't trace your solution back through your synthesis, panelists will notice.
The "We Never Wrote Anything Down" Panic: Come oral defense, teams frantically try to remember how they collaborated. Document everything: photograph your whiteboard sessions, save your synthesis drafts, note breakthrough moments. When asked, "How did your team resolve disagreements?" you want specific examples, not vague memories. "In week 3, we disagreed about root causes until Jordan's historical research showed us we were both right about different time periods."
Final Thoughts
Performance Task 1 challenges you to think beyond individual achievement. The best teams create something genuinely collaborative - insights that no member could have reached alone. Embrace the messiness of real collaboration; it's where learning happens.
Your individual expertise matters, but your ability to contribute to collective understanding matters more. This task prepares you for a world where complex problems require diverse perspectives and collaborative solutions. The skills you develop here - deep research, perspective-taking, synthesis, and collaborative argumentation - serve you far beyond this assessment.