(Response to prompt #1: Use Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle to discuss your in-situ at Marysville Elementary School this week)

Image from https://helendenheld.com/tag/gibbs-reflective-learning-cycle/

The Gibbs Reflective Cycle is a new idea to me, but I found it really helpful when looking back on my in-situ lesson this week. Honestly, I think I’ll print out a copy of the graphic above to reflect on in the future! I could see this method of reflection working well for social emotional situations as well as academic ones.

For this week’s lesson we created stop-motion videos with two grade 3 classes, and I’m going to outline each point in the Gibbs Reflective Cycle as it fits with my in-situ experience.

Description: What happened?

-My year two cohort visited a K-3 Elementary school in the area for an in-situ technology lesson. We introduced ourselves to the two grade 3 classes we were partnered with, then split into teaching pairs and each worked with a group of about 5 students. The students had already learned about using the Zing! Studios app, so when it came to creating the stop motion films they were very confident. The students used their “desk pets” (tiny stuffed animals) as the actors, and created props, backdrops, and a storyline in collaboration with the teaching pairs. When the filming was complete, the students edited, added sound effects, and then shared their creations with the class in a “movie premiere”.

Feelings: What were you thinking and feeling?

I felt so happy to be working in a classroom for this lesson, and I was thrilled that the students were just as excited to create stop motion videos as I was. At first I was nervous to be in a classroom while sick because I was starting to lose my voice, but for this lesson it wasn’t an issue and the students could understand me well. I felt very curious about how K-3 schools work, because before the lesson I actually did not know they existed (embarrassing, right?).

Evaluation: What was good and bad about the experience?

I’ll get the bad out of the way first because it’s pretty quick. In fact, it’s more like “slight room for improvement” than bad. The students enjoyed the lesson so much, I wish they had more time to work on their videos. My group of students had so many ideas about story elements, backgrounds, sound effects, and prop designs that I think it would be great to see them have two classes to fully realize these ideas. In a way that is also the good part- that students were so creative, collaborative, and joyful in this lesson, it really reminded me how amazing kids are and why I want to teach them.

Analysis: What sense can you make of the situation?

I think this wonderful lesson represents many classrooms, but I also have to remember that sometimes things don’t work so smoothly and that’s ok. I think many factors contributed to the success of the lesson, and those factors are not a given in elementary schools. For example, the two classes were grade 3 within a K-3 school, so their way of being probably reflects the responsibility they feel as the oldest students in their school. The two classes were also quite used to the team teaching approach, as were there respective teachers. I think this made collaboration extra smooth, and perhaps even prepared students for staying regulated in large groups of people. I also know from experience that students may act very differently in front of new guests, based on the time of day, and based on all the complex factors in their personal lives that allow them to regulate and learn more easily.

Conclusion: What else could you have done?

I think that I could’ve been more direct in helping the student group with time management. Even though the video came together in the end and the group was proud of their work, the storyboard portion of the lesson took up a bit more time than the budget allowed for. Shortening the group’s storyboard session would’ve allowed them for more time to create props, which they were very excited about but didn’t get much time to do. I also think I could’ve had a quick huddle with my teaching partner before starting the lesson to make sure we were on the same page about divvying up the talking portions, because I worry that I may have used up too much of the air time.

Action plan: If it arose again, what could you do?

If (or more accurately, when) a similar teaching scenario arises, I want to ensure I budget well for time and am not dominating the teaching/learning conversation. I have a personal time-budgeting method I use for essay writing, where I will write down on a paper the amounts of time each portion will take and then move to the next portion as each time stamp passes on the clock, crossing them off as I go. I think something similar to this would be worth a try in the classroom. As I said in the previous paragraph, I would also like to have a 30 second chat with my teaching partner before starting to make a game plan for delivering the lesson as a team.

(Response to prompt #4: Discuss your group’s creation and how you envision using stop motion videos in the classroom)

This week, we had the opportunity to make stop-motion videos in small groups in class. I worked with two lovely teaching program classmates to create the fun stop-motion video below.

We had so much fun making this that when our teacher reminded us class was nearly over, we asked for a few more minutes to add a soundtrack! I was surprised to enjoy using technology (the Zing Studio mobile app) so much, it’s now something I would strongly consider introducing to my future classroom.

The video we created is very silly and abstract, but there is something of a story happening here. A fire starts burning, but once the flame grows big a wave of water douses it and evaporates. One of the leftover water droplets turns into a rainbow that grows bigger and explodes. Bits of the fire, water, and rainbow all mix together, then one of the pieces begins to “eat” the other ones (a bit like Pac Man). Finally, the four surviving pieces bump into each other in the middle and explode away.

For the soundtrack, we just played the video while recording the noises of blocks clicking and sliding together in real time. I liked this feature in the app because it was so simple and accessible, my group was able to record and add our soundtrack in under one minute. I think this video was especially fun because it demonstrates that very simple wood toys can spark so much creativity in all ages. As we worked we noticed simple qualities like the sounds, colours, and textures of the blocks were quite interesting- it felt like being a curious kid again.

My group was all very excited to bring stop-motion projects into our classrooms one day by the end of it, which I think is interesting because it’s not a project I would’ve previously thought of as being “exciting” (sorry stop motion, no offense). In fact, I enjoyed it so much that my key adaptation would likely be giving students more time to create videos and soundtracks, perhaps even props or backgrounds.

I would consider splitting this activity over two classes: during one students could create props, backgrounds, and film, and during the next students could edit, add a soundtrack, and present their videos. I would definitely add time for students to share their videos because after my group was done, we were so excited to share our creation and see what everyone else made. I think this would be great for students because feeling proud of your work and using it to connect with classmates is a great way to keep students engaged and curious in school.

(Response to prompt #2: My Own Digital Footprint)

I researched my digital footprint this week because I’ve heard stories of people who expect to find nothing and are surprised at how much the internet knows about them. I went into this exercise expecting to find little to nothing, and I was fully unsurprised by the end of it. I began with a Google search of my name, trying with and without my full birth name and every variation. I added details such as my hometown, schools attended, every form of social media I could think of, and the list goes on.

First, my empty and unused ResearchGate account popped up. Anything else I was able to find was something I was already fully aware of and had (thankfully) consented to be posted. It was all very mundane, a few run-of-the-mill news articles about community activities from my hometown, plus my high school’s graduation Instagram post. Reflecting on this, I felt grateful that people around me asked for my permission about these sorts of things. The few times my name or picture was shared, I remember always being with my family or school and being asked if I was ok with being mentioned or pictured.

Because my name is quite common in Canada and many English-speaking countries, results piled up for every search I did. Although obviously I was able to find my own social media accounts by typing in my usernames (which I can barely remember on my own), I wasn’t able to find any of my social media through searching my name and I think this is because a.) my name is so common, and b.) I’m rarely active on social media and when I am, I’m not doing anything exciting.

Being on Instagram led me to remember one thing I truly regret in my digital footprint, although I couldn’t find it. When I was 14 and freshly on Instagram, I made a very ignorant and hurtful white-saviour post. It was rude, belittling, and really, nobody asked for it. In my mind, I had thought I was being kind and uplifting, but it was the absolute opposite. I say this not to act as if I “didn’t know better”, because I did, but to highlight that intentions are not enough to steer us to make good choices- an important internet lesson I will teach my class one day.

It was my wise Mum who told me about 45 minutes later to delete it, and after becoming unreasonably defensive (as white people often do when we realize we are wrong) I listened. No evidence of the awful post has arisen to this day, and I still don’t know for sure if it affected anyone, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t consequences. This is another internet lesson I want to teach my class: that even if you could perfectly erase something from social media, what matters the most is how it affects the people who saw it.

(Response to Prompt #3: Your experience with social media)

My experience with social media has been fairly minimal compared to many of my peers. I got my first phone when I was fourteen years old, and had never owned a piece of digital technology before. My parents still have never used social media, so growing up it was very foreign to me. Even as an adult who grew up in the age of social media, I still don’t feel very internet literate. Part of this is by choice, because enough hours wasted watching funny cat videos made me feel as if I’d hit rock bottom. I used to get so distracted by social media that it disrupted my life in small ways: I’d find myself staring until my eyes got dry or ignoring my body’s signals to sleep so I could watch another thirty second tutorial on making the best sourdough bread.

When I recently downloaded Snapchat again to join an EKTEP group chat, I hoped I had the willpower to resist the dark intrigue of the internet this time. I did not. I spent an hour flipping through clips of things I don’t actually care about, and by the end I had learned nothing. I also messed my back up by awkwardly hunching over my phone, perfectly still, while I bombarded my brain with media. I was so consumed by it that my brain diverted the pain signals to the spam folder, and I wasn’t in touch with my physical body until I put the phone down. The real kicker is that while I spent an hour scrolling, I only spent about three minutes talking with my classmates- and it all could’ve taken place over text.

Now this might be an extreme example to some, but others with ADHD (and many without) can likely relate. The years I’ve spent without using social media, my knowledge of attention economics, my self-awareness, all felt unavailable to me as soon as I was plugged back in, and I was back doing what I was doing at fourteen. I know my neurotype predisposes me to distraction online, but in my experience it doesn’t seem any level personal effort removes the glaring issue that social media is addictive by design.

On the other hand, I have learned some things from social media. Instagram let me listen to people of diverse beliefs and backgrounds, and I needed that growing up in an overwhelmingly white middle-class neighbourhood in what I’ve been told is B.C.’s most conservative riding. Instagram sparked my engagement in politics as a teen, and provided me with directions to podcasts, authors, scholars, and activists that I still learn from today. I learned about my Queer identity through social media and was shown positive role models I still look up to and feel inspired by.

Instagram showed me the nitty-gritty details of the active struggles between marginalized groups and their oppressors around the world and in my own city. More importantly, it got me out at protests, voting in every election (yes, even school board), sitting at city hall, confronting my bosses, all that good stuff. But in between all that good stuff, I was up late defending issues that shouldn’t be up for debate against people who didn’t care and weren’t ready to listen. I was also up late watching funny cat videos. The amount of hurtful and even dangerous ideas about Queer people, not to mention every other marginalized group, is overwhelming on social media and it left me burnt out and sad. So I choose to learn in other ways, consume different media for entertainment, and make my social connections without the internet.