Students presented their research questions, chapter headings and snippets of interesting findings they may have come across in their reading.

The audience, made up of students and supervisors, had the opportunity to offer comments and suggestions for improvement.

The two day program also offered an opportunity for students to learn about the different topics that are being researched and subsequently broaden their knowledge on different contexts and issues of global importance.

Each student was given 10 minutes to present their most up-to-date EE research findings.

Students were required to inform the panel of the following:

1. Subject, research topic and question.
2. What is their EE about? Key issues to be addressed etc.
3. Research conducted thus far and planned research for the summer.
4. Methodology for data collection & analysis.
5. Possible chapter headings (a workable outline of possible sections and or chapters).
6. Problems encountered and solutions found where applicable.

Students’ Reflections

Daniela Kuma

I found the Extended Essay Cafe very informative, interactive and helpful. It gave me the opportunity to present my Extended Essay plan to others and receive relevant and useful feedback to improve my future essay.

It also gave me the opportunity to listen to interesting content from various subject areas and have a better understanding of the structure and procedure of writing the extended essay.

From this Cafe, I hope to write an excellent essay with the knowledge I have acquired and complete it within my set deadlines.

Aku Addo

Participating in the EE Café was a very interesting experience. It was awesome to learn about everyone’s topics and how they plan to spend their summer working on them.  It allowed me to receive feedback about my essay from my supervisor and seek help where needed. Also, I benefited from feedback and commentary given to other students which I will take into consideration. Overall, it was a very beneficial class and I look forward to working and completing my essay.

John Adjei

We were engaged in an Extended Essay café for 2 days from the 23 –  24 April. Personally, I found it a good experience as I learnt from the mistakes I made and corrected them. I learnt about the various criteria and how to maximize my marks in them and achieve a good grade in the EE. In addition, I learnt how to cite my sources using the Harvard reference style. I also learnt that you have to go further than your syllabus to get a good grade in the EE as examiners reward students marks for going further than what is taught in the classroom.

Akos Osei

The Extended Essay Café was very beneficial for me. I was able to listen to advice given to me on ways to improve my essay. I was also able to listen to advice given to other students which I also took into consideration. Overall I enjoyed the whole experience and am looking forward to seeing everyone’s finished essays after the school vacation.

Padikuor Nartey

Initially, I didn’t expect to do much over this two-day period, but after Mr Darko sent us the program line up I realized that it would be very beneficial. Through the Extended Essay café, I was able to correct my errors as well as those of others, and I’ve been able to identify strategies to help make my Extended Essay better. I’ve also been able to improve my researching skills and build my communication skills especially with my supervisor which I believe will go a long way in helping me achieve the grade I’m working towards.

David Ahashie

The Extended Essay café has been insightful, I thought it would be a waste of my time, but listening to feedback and responses from my colleagues helped me make changes to my proposal making it a success. Thank you to the supervisors and Mr. Darko for this opportunity.

Selali Blege

I was very perplexed about the whole idea of an Extended Essay, so when my supervisor told me that I had to do a proposal I was even more perturbed. Luckily for me though, I was amongst the group of people who were going to present last. Thanks to these circumstances I was able to see more of my colleagues’ works and listen to the comments and observe their methods and views. This helped me edit my presentation further and gain more knowledge in the Extended Essay. Now I feel more confident in my research question and scope, and I hope to use all the points I got from the cafe like those concerning the criteria when I am finally writing the essay.

Nana Afranie-Adjei

This EE Cafe was very insightful to me because I was able to identify the problems in EE and I was given solutions on how to improve certain areas by the supervisors as well as my grade mates. After receiving these helpful comments from my supervisors, and my grade mates and listening to the comments others received, I know how to structure my Extended Essay and what information I should and should not add to it to make it good.

Kendric Effah-Gyan

This EE session has been a complete success for me. My research question was vague to an extent and I did not want to accept that fact because of the work I put behind it.

However, as the sessions continued, I realized the validity of the responses and I followed them accordingly. What I gained from this is that there are little ways an EE can lose focus from the research question. Seeing that my ITGS EE has a social and ethical side to it, even though it is a requirement, balance must be reflected through the IT and social and ethical aspects. It has been a great session overall and I hope it helps me build up a great Extended Essay.

Akua Okyere

This two day Extended Essay cafe has been tremendously helpful. Going in, my expectations were not high. It was simply to present your EE and let the supervisors vet it. However, the students were allowed to pose questions and give comments. The comments that were made about my grade mates’ work eventually helped me in the planning of my EE, although most of the research topics were from different disciplines.

Abele Timoleon-Ampofo

Participating in the EE Café was a very interesting experience. It was awesome to learn about everyone’s topics and how they plan to spend their summers working on them.  It allowed me to receive feedback about my essay from my supervisor and seek help where needed. Also, I benefited from feedback and commentary given to other student which I will take into consideration. Overall, it was a very beneficial class and I look forward to working and completing my essay.

Sophia Nyonyo

The EE cafe showed me that I need to work harder on my research question and visit my supervisor more regularly so that I can do good work. I also need to make more time and make a better development plan for the EE.

We reviewed the criteria again, so I understood more about what exactly I needed to do to get good marks especially Criterion C: Critical Thinking and Mr Darko spoke about “No narration:

Every claim must be supported with evidence and facts, and cite the source”.

Steve Williams

We finally had our first EE café in one of our exam halls. I was extremely nervous as I had no prior knowledge of how an EE cafe presentation works. Luckily for me, I was the 11th person to go up so I had an idea of how it should go. The presentation went quite smoothly as I was audible and surprisingly confident, but after, I realized that I had to make a few changes as they had been pointed out to me by the lovely English department. The first issue was that with my question, the “over time” is a little too vague, so I have to make it a bit more focused. Another thing is that I need to look for parameters of time that I’ll use to measure the “evolution” (I could look for the trends in fashion or modeling at that particular era in other words). I also have to make the sexual objectification “more focused”, so I will either have to choose between males and females. Finally, I have to do subheadings, instead of chapters as well as remove some of the explicit pictures. From this process, I’ve realized that I have to think more critically if I want this EE to be a success. I will really have to delve deep into the subject matter so that I can wring out success, and success only, from my EE.

Temiloluwa Olufore

The Extended Essay cafe that occurred on the 23 – 24 April 2019, was very insightful.  During these two days we looked at other people’s presentations and different supervisors gave them feedback. I was able to take away key points from the different feedback and make some tweaks to my own proposed work. This café has helped me understand more in general about the Extended Essay as a whole and the expectations to deliver the right type of essay. These cafés are very essential for students, and I believe that in the future it will be very beneficial for other students.