I have finally finished my Publishing Leadership Project and feel proud of my accomplishments. It has been nice to reflect and put together a cohesive paper to document my journey through my AR process and project. However, are several things I wish I had done differently in my AR, especially how I collected data.
I will focus on submitting to International Journal of Education & The Arts as I’ve been an art teacher for 4 years in the NYC public schools, and 1 Year in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. I’m excited by the prospect of having my research and findings published with the possibly inspiring other educators.
I agree that this project could benefit from another cycle and the additional feedback and data you would receive from students after the projects had been completed. You might want to consider giving at least the students most heavily involved in the filming and editing and production work an exit "attitude survey" as you had at the start of the project, to gauge how successful they felt the project was and to try to design upcoming projects for Town Hall events with their interests in mind.
ReplyDeleteOverall, the project does seem to be a great success, with students benefiting from finding their own voices and moving to the other side of the camera- no longer just passively watching, but doing and making and telling the story... that's very powerful!
By the way, the work you have compiled is impressive... the website and the student-made movie samples as well as the final paper. The proof to me is "in the puddin'" as they say, and it is plain to see that these projects have been expansive and important to the students envested in them.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading (and listening and watching) your AR project. You did an excellent job of relating your data into easily comprehensible charts and graphs as well! Great work!
ReplyDeleteThe data was overwhelmingly in support of the case for more visuals and technology in the classroom. However, if possible, it would be interesting to see a larger data set than 22 students if you conduct another cycle or intend to publish your findings. A citywide sampling might not be possible, but perhaps if you speak with the school's network, you could set up a surveymonkey survey that teachers could access with their students to complete the same data. Of course, access to a computer lab and laptop cart would be necessary for this which would create a confounding variable ;-). But, this could be proposed as a segue into a classroom debate about the costs/benefits of technology in the classroom. I think a lot of teachers would be grateful for a lesson plan and the school's network would probably appreciate the possibility of additional data that they could use in future grant-writing.