The time and assessment factors
I think two of the biggest obstacles in convincing K-12 teachers to engage in digital storytelling with their students are the TIME and ASSESSMENT factors. First, teachers are already overburdened with curricular demands, and view multi-day projects like those involving digital stories as something they simply don't have time for. We have intense pressure (esp in our high stakes testing environment) to cover the curriculum and teach to the test rather than encourage in-depth student learning.
The second related obstacle is assessment. Administrators and teachers alike both want to know: Will this activity increase student performance on our state achievement tests? I am convinced students need to develop 21st century literacy skills which extend beyond the "3 R's," and engaging in digital storytelling can develop both traditional and "digital literacy" skills. But how do we "sell this" effectively to other educators?
posted by Wesley Fryer @ 9:16 AM
8 comments
links to this post
8 Comments:
Wesley,
You make excellant points. Our local school district has just adopted the comprehensive curriculum which doesn't even allow for re-teaching much less for multi-day projects. I would be very interested in hearing if anyone has successfully incorporated digital storytelling into the comprehensive curriculum, and the assessment tools used.
Thanks
Dayle
I agree, at this point in time teachers need to be able to see the concrete link to the curriculum before they will invest time and effort into a long term project of any type.
My dissertation will be looking specifically at digital storytelling as a means of authentic assessment in the classroom, I'm still sorting out the direct focus and means for the study but I'm excited about showing more of what digital storytelling can do in the classroom.
Stacy Behmers creative component for her Master's degree address this issue as well. I believe Denise Schmidt posted it in an earlier post.
Cynthia
I did find this article today on TechLearning, "Standards-Proof Your Digital Storytelling Efforts" by David Jakes. In it David cites 21st century literacy skills, NCTE standards, and NETS for Students standards. These arguments may help, but ultimately I fear the test-score impact of digital storytelling may be viewed as too indirect by many teachers for them to embrace it as an instructional strategy.
I think the best persuasive case for digital storytelling can probably be made by the kids themselves, who respond positively to the lessons through their own levels of engagement and their self-reported learning outcomes. I'll look forward to reading what you come up with on your dissertation about this, Cynthia.
I think you've hit on an important issue here, Wesley. My colleague, Kathy Swan, and I just completed a study in a fifth grade classroom in which both of these issues figured prominantly. We had built up a rapport with the teacher through previous work and she went to great lengths to accomodate the 10 class hours that the project requried. We muddled our way through the project and the kids created some nice products, but in a post interview we asked the teacher if she would do it again. Her response was a concise, "I think not."
I think for this to work, these are important issues to address. I don't think they're insurmountable, but they can't just be pushed aside either. My sense is this will take a whole community of folks to honestly and doggedly work through it.
Mark
Wesley referred to students needing to learn 21st century literacy skills ... no argument from me on that!
However, to stop there is limiting the power and impact of a futures related argument that is gaining momentum in the minds of thinking educators ... perhaps WE need to learn 21st Century skills!
I'll be more pointed - perhaps we should stop trying to assess needed 21st century skills with 19th century assessment tools and expectations!
Perhaps we just need to be a little smarter as a profession and as a society when it comes to 'measuring' and weighing various outcomes of learning.
Looking at the power and impact of digital storytelling (in its many iterations) purely from the perspective of how digital story telling projects impact performance on standardised tests is an example of one of the greatest travesties of our industry and one of the great sadnesses of the way we define 'learning' today.
The fact that we are constrained to think this way (becasue we all maintain this 'system') is even sadder!
Are we measuring all that we hold as important and vital in the learning process? ... and is performance on standardised tests for reading and mathematics enough for the 21st century?
We need to convince ourselves that we can meet learning objectives in a multitude of ways - and then we need to teach each other how to design and ACCEPT authentic assessments as genuine indicators of student learning ... the rest is easy because we'll all know that authentic, integrated learning experiences like those built around digital storytelling work and do the real job we are supposed to be doing as teachers!!
Ian
I agree with you Ian. So the question is: Do we need to find different ways to quantiatively measure student learning in the realm of "21st century literacy skills" and make the case that those measures should "count" as much as more traditional, standardized measures do, or should we advocate for a move away from a standards and accountability focus? The alternative would be messier, more student-specific assessment that is ongoing and more authentic / performance based I think. I am not sure what the answer is.
Ian and Wesley,
You both bring up very good points.
But I do not believe this problem is unique to digital storytelling. We have this same issue with many of our technology integration projects. I think the issue goes beyond this medium.
In my opinion the undedrlying issue and one we all need to address as educators in higher education is to remind the public that higher education was not designed to "train" a work force.
That is what technical schools were designed to do. Simply put, initially higher education was to facilitate critical thinking, and problem solving. Historically as for the workforce, a youth either practiced as an apprentice with someone in a field they wanted as their livelihood or were trained by their employer.
There is no wonder then why higher education is "failing" in the public's perception. Higher education has not really changed it's purpose it is the general public who has changed "their" desired outcome.
I feel we need to send this reminder to the public every chance that arises.
Last Friday evening at my favorite watering hole one of my colleagues and I were able to discuss this very topic with many of the patrons sitting at the bar with us who are not educators at all. But had all received at least a Bachelors degree. The discussion began when one complained that students are graduating from college without the skills to perform tasks in the workplace. By the end of the discussion, they all had a different view of the purpose of higher education. Too bad it is not so easy with the rest of the public. We need to keep this debate in the forefront and not allow those outside of education to keep pushing it to the backburner.
To move beyond the status quo will mean to think outside the box, which is usually not very popular.
So for now I show my pre-service teachers how to assess the technology skills using standard assessment practices such as rubrics. In our curriculum in Louisiana, technology skills are considered content and have standards as well as GLE's applied to them. Either the student can or cannot perform the skills in varying degrees therefore it is quanitatively measurable. (and much to my chagrin being a conformist.)
Dear Wesley and All,
Years ago, I read Lisa Delpit's essay and then her edited collection by the same title--Other People's Children. Lisa raised a simple, but critical question: Do we as educators teach other people's children differently from the way we would teach our own?
I sincerely appreciate your concern about assessment...and I am dismayed that NCLB has caused us all to wonder whether we have the right to engage in what seem promising practices if we can't be certain that they will lead to a numeric increase in representations of a child's "learning."
My own children are the same age as many of you, and I have always found it fairly easy to express what I expected from their teachers: Please help them develop a passion for learning and enable them to learn the tools they will need to become lifelong, independent learners.
In the keynote on Tuesday, I'll be inviting bloggers to think about the metaphor that the U.S. federal government employs in conversations about teaching and learning (see the current March speech by President Bush on the DOE website). Education is a "race," and we must enable U.S. children to "beat" the children from other countries.
Hmmm...what do you think? How did you want to be taught? How would you like your own children or nieces and nephews to be taught? Think of everything you know about "races" what are their constituent parts? Does "race" work for you as an apt metaphor for learning?
Thanks, one and all, for this stimulating conversation. I look forward to meeting you!
Janet
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home