How
In both English II and the Introduction to Early Childhood Education, we devote class time to these projects. During some of that time we explain the projects, showing examples and discussing students’ ideas and questions. Some students come with minimal technological skills, while others – particularly in Joe’s class, which can include multimedia majors – have lots of expertise. We don’t spend much time teaching the technology. In fact, we’ve chosen PowerPoint, because it’s easy to learn.
Both of us give students incremental choices and step-by-step scaffolding through sequenced assignments. And, in both classes, students go public with their presentations at the end of the semester. The project is worth something in terms of a grade.
Rachel
Theilheimer
Steps in the Process
The stories, besides becoming the core of their projects, help me get to know the students quickly. They are due on the second day of class, and I grade them. Everyone can get full points on a story by revising to make sure it has the elements of a story and can be understood by a reader. When I read each story, I suggest some key words that I think the writer could use to search the topic of the story and learn more about it.
After they write their stories and I read them, the students transfer them to PowerPoint. At this point they think about graphics, which they'll continue to do throughout the semester. From then on, the students complete a series of assignments. They read articles they find on the Internet that are related to the topic of their stories; they interview someone or observe young children in action to learn more about their topics; some of them read books as well.
Since this is a first research project for many students, I've tried to use it to teach Internet searching skills and to help them learn how to cite sources without plagiarizing. In the Internet site assignment, for example, they select quotes that they consider germane to their project, put them in quotation marks, and cite the source according to APA style.
Then they explain why they've chose those quotes and how they relate to their topic, what the quotes add, and what was surprising or new to the student in the quotes. They choose other quotes to paraphrase and discuss them as well.
In the second half of the semester, the students assemble what they've learned into a multimedia project, once again using research skills that may be new to them. They isolate the key points from their research and find the junctures in their story that relate to these key points. They group their notes within these categories. I grade this assignment, as I do all the others, giving credit for students' taking the steps they need to complete the assignment - I hope, in their own ways.
Next they create storyboards by writing up their key points on PowerPoint and adding those slides to their story. They print the PowerPoint and think about how the links from their story to the key points will work. Then, using the Word drawing function they make text boxes to represent each slide and connect them with arrows that show their links.
Finally, they complete their presentation. They put in the links, selecting a line from their story to become hypertext that connects to a "key points slide." They refine their selection of graphics and add sound.
Some students recorded their voices reading what they had written about their research. These narrations helped students take ownership of the ideas and information they gained from their research and reinforced the connection to their personal experiences.
Some students volunteered to show their almost finished presentations to the rest of the class. The criticisms were thoughtful, and the courageous volunteers benefited from the feedback. The rest of the class got ideas from them, and watching these presentations helped students who were still floundering to get a clearer idea of what they might do with their work.
Finally, on the last two days of class, the rest of the class showed their presentations. I graded the final project using this rubric.
Joe
Ugoretz
Steps in the Process
- Choose a poem.
- Use your textbook, http://www.poets.org , your own poetry, any source you can find.
- Read the poem-more than once.
- Try to think about what it means overall (you could start thinking about music at this point)
- look at the parts of the poem. How does it divide? Line by line? Stanzas? Groups of lines?
- put each part onto a separate slide in PowerPoint
- look at the meaning of each part. Is there a feeling attached to each meaning? An image that's clear? An image that's unclear?
- think about pictures. What kind of picture fits each meaning?
- Start doing some Google searching to find pictures that might work. Don't pick the first one you see-look it over, and think about how it fits. Talk to your classmates, friends, parents, professors.
- start putting your PowerPoint together.
- Add the pictures to your slides. Think about backgrounds and transitions.
- make your final selection of music and bring in the cd or music file.
- add notes to each slide
- try to explain why you made the choices you did.
- send the music and PowerPoint to my dropbox
- enjoy the festival!
