Classroom Environment-DigHum

The classroom where I conducted the research from this project is where I did my student teaching during this semester.  It was a sixth grade classroom that was set up in a team environment.  I taught Language Arts as well as Social Studies, and my team teacher taught Math and Science. The team I taught consisted of 38 students, and the academic range among the students was quite wide.  It was a full inclusion school, so there were students with different learning disabilities included in the classroom.  Having such wide gaps in the academic level among students was quite a challenge when planning instruction and assignments that could incorporate students of all learning levels. In my student teaching, I taught topics starting from the Abolitionist and Women’s Suffrage Movement through the Civil War.

As for the technology that could be found in the schools, it can be said that there were some limitations.  Due to some certain circumstances, the school had to recently vacate their usual building to one that was much older and with limited resources. My cooperating teacher apologized to me on my first day in the classroom, explaining that their school had some setbacks with their technology due to the building change. However, I told her it’s what you do with the technology you have that matters. Not every child had their own laptop as in some schools, but there were three different computer labs and the library for the use of the students in grades 6-8.  However, every classroom did have smartboard located in them, and there is a lot that can be done with them to engage the students.

Students-DigHum

When I looked at this assignment, I decided I wanted do come up with something that got all the students involved.  I didn’t want to use just one group of students or one class.  I knew this would be a challenge due to the range of ability within the classroom.  However, I wanted to come up with a way to use technology that could help bring the class together and aid all students when learning about historical ideas and concepts.  Besides the range of academic abilities, there was also a diverse range of personalities among my students.  There were some that were quite bubbly and active, while others were quieter and seemed to work behind the scenes. I wanted to somehow use technology to bring together students of all personality types and learning levels to work together.

Flips and Skits-DigHum

I had recently gone home and was looking over some family videos when I ran across some skits I perform with my siblings for fun.  It hit me, kids love being in front of a camera.  I knew that the class was already used to performing skits in from of the class, so I thought it would be perfect to use a flip video camera to record the students’ skits. This way they could be more creative, incorporate everyone in the group, and redo parts when they messed up.  Although the students were already used to performing skits, being recorded by the flip would be a new experience for them.

I was starting my first unit on the Abolitionist and Women’s Suffrage Movements when I started to think about this assignment.  I knew that I was going to teach the students on the use of propaganda during the Women’s Suffrage Movement, so I thought it would be a perfect idea to incorporate using the flip camera during this lesson.  I decided to have the students create “commercials” that could have run during the time of the Women’s Suffrage Movement.  Before doing this they would have already learned and taken notes on the topic, so they would have all the required information at their fingertips.  I broke the students up into groups (by randomly pulling note cards with their names on it) and explained to them exactly what they needed to do.  I told them that during these commercials they needed to come up with a slogan, reference a famous suffragist, reference a conference, and include the rights the women were fighting for.  The results I got were pretty awesome, and they were all quite different.  Some of them had a bit of comedy added to it while others were on a more dramatic level.  As we watched these videos as a class and talked about them, I saw their value as a review tool.

I decided to use the flip again after seeing the success in student involvement and getting them to connect to the concepts.  We were halfway through the Civil War unit when another chance of using the flip presented itself.  The students had just learned about the differences (cultural, economic, and political) between the North and South during the Civil War. I decided to break the students up into groups and assign them to be either Republican or Democrat.  Each group had to state their political ideology, economic benefits of their region, cultural identity of their region, and include a slogan they created.  It served as the perfect review tool. It took the information the students had been learning about in multiple lessons and pulled it all together.  The one thing I did differently was that while the students were watching the videos they had to fill out a chart listing the mandatory elements each group was supposed to include.

Reflection-DigHum

After these two skits, I had the students write a reflection stating how they felt about using this technology.  They were asked how they liked using the flip, if they liked using the flip or performing in front of the class better, and then to explain their answers. When I read over the reflections I was a bit shocked.  More students than what I would have imagined claimed that they would rather perform skits in front of the class than record them on the flips. Some students claimed they just wanted to get it over with while other students said they didn’t like the sound of their voice.  However, when I explained to the students that everyone sounds differently than what they think they do, they were a bit relieved.  For the most part the students all agreed that it was nice to be able to redo a part when they messed up.

One More Go-DigHum

I thought that I was done using the flip, but one other opportunity presented itself.  I had assigned the students to create an I Am poem told through the perspectives of different groups during the Civil War.  The views were Union Soldier, Confederate Soldier, African American, and Woman.  When looking over the student work of these poems I was impressed with how powerful they were.  I wanted to do something with them, so I had the students get into the groups of their viewpoints and create a poster incorporating all of their poems.  However, the finished product of these posters just didn’t convey how powerful these poems were.  I decided to use the flip one last time and record each student reciting their poems.  Then I sliced up each poem and put them together with their group into a movie.  As the students watched the end result of the movies (lots of sleepless nights putting them together) their eyes lit up with excitement as they saw themselves deliver their lines. At the end their names rolled by on the credits and nothing can describe how I felt seeing my students puff up with pride as they saw their name roll by.  I gave another short survey asking the students how they liked the end product of this project and everyone loved how the poems were put together into a movie.  The students also really liked that they were reading their poems to the camera so it provided them with a script, and they also liked that they did their recordings alone and not in front of their group mates.  One of the questions on the survey asked if they learned anything.  Several students claimed they learned that there were multiple perspectives during the Civil War, and some students even went into detail of what these different perspectives were.  I was very happy with the results of the project.

Student Work-DigHum

Women’s Suffrage commercial:

Political Campaign commercials:

I Am Movies

Data Analysis-DigHum

As stated above I found these videos to be great review tools for the students.  The groups often brought up different topics and points in their videos, and it was seldom that they all missed an important issue.  Evidence of this being an important review tool was in the result of their test.  The students did exceptionally well on the issues that started to tear the country apart during the Civil War.  All students were involved in most of these videos, and even those who are softer spoken often stepped up and took center stage, and the creativity of most of these videos were superb.  The videos of the I Am poems proved to be a valuable source that helped the students understand the different perspectives during the Civil War.  It was a great empathy project that helped show the students how these people felt during the war.

Reflection

The findings as a result of these three separate projects were quite significant and different.  For the most part, the results of these projects were quite positive. Of course some of the scripts for certain videos were more creative and put together better than the rest, but none of the groups utterly failed any of the assignments. However, there was one instance that discouraged me a bit with the I Am video.  I did not grade any of these flip video assignments. They were just for the benefit of the students. There was one girl who had figured this out.  After I had given the assignment for the students to get into their groups and create posters of their I Am poems she immediately withdrew from the group signaling she didn’t want to participate.  I tried to encourage her to take part and include her poem on the poster, but realized she had note even bothered to do the assignment and create one.  Although one of the main purposes of using the flip was to get all students involved I had to give up on including her.  If she didn’t want to do the work, then she couldn’t be a part of the videos.  A part of me wanted to make the last video for a grade in order for there to be consequences, but I knew that wasn’t really fair.  I rationalized that in the end, when the students were all feeling so proud of what they accomplished, she would realize the importance of doing individual work in order to participate making something bigger.

Even though the videos provided for a great review tool, there are many other great ways to review for a test.  However, I believe that it is one of the best ways to show empathy to the students.  The I Am poems were extremely powerful, and all the teachers in the room had goose bumps watching the final movies put together from the two classes.  Using the flip got the students excited! They were excited to create the script and then to see the final product.  It is a great way to motivate the students to stay on task and get involved with one another.  By putting the students into random groups, it got them working outside of just their friends.  It brought the classroom together into a true, equal learning environment.

Future Work–Dighum

I was lucky to be able to use the flip camera multiple times during my student teaching. This allowed me to implicate ideas and suggestions the next time around to help promote student learning.  For instance, having the students fill out a chart while watching the second set of videos was a piece of advice given to me, and it proved to be a great tool to make sure that A. students were paying attention, and B. getting the necessary material from the assignment.  I have taken the idea of the videos being a great tool to tie ideas and concepts together away from this project.  The second skit could not have worked out more perfectly with its timing.  It pulled together all the essential information (SOL!!!) from a week’s worth of lessons.  I was lucky in the fact that my cooperating teacher stayed very much involved with the class during the student teaching.  The question was brought to my attention on what I would have done if I didn’t have her to watch over the class while I filmed each group out in the hallway.  One idea I thought of was to bring the class to the library and do filming in one section while students are working on their projects in another, but under the close eyes of the librarians.  Another idea is to have the students take the flip and film themselves doing these videos.  That would be a good solution, and I did consider it, but I guess I was too nervous about giving up a sense of control to the students. If I was shooting the films, I still had a bit of control and guidance over the final products.  Overall, it was a great experience working with my students in order to complete this project.

End to an AMAZING Chapter

            This is a poem on of my students gave me at the end of the year. She lists all the things I had taught them throughout my student teaching. It brought me to tears realizing how much I can affect lives and encourage learning. As an aspiring teacher one fear is that I wouldn’t be able to do that. Seeing this gave me the confidence that I am a good teacher and all my hard work had paid off!