This year I posed a challenge to my first year students in speaking class at the teacher training college: Did they want to each research a topic and present a speech or did they want to do an interactive, collaborative video project, requiring much more effort and time, but ultimately producing a video they could each take home?
I must admit, I thought they would definitely pick the first choice in our class vote. I was so proud the day they accepted my video challenge. I was also a bit wary, as I had never actually done a video project with students before and I had neither opened the iMovie software on my computer, nor turned on the video camera to see if it even worked.
The students were also nervous as most of them had never been either in front or behind a camera before. It was a lot of firsts for everyone. Nonetheless, the students started working on their stories by conducting research and dividing the necessary tasks among their groups. It was an enormous endeavor and the students were still anxious about what to expect.
I was even more nervous because I knew if the project was unsuccessful, my course would be a disaster. I was even more determined than my students to make sure that the final product would be something that we would all be proud of.
As I edited the first drafts of their storyboards, I became even more nervous that the project would fall flat. With constant encouragement and enthusiasm, I tried to keep the students motivated and optimistic about the project.
The first day we sent the group out to film at a local cancer research center, the students returned to campus with smiles that stretched across their cheeks as wide as possible. It was at that moment that I knew for certain that the project would achieve its aim, by giving the students self-confidence in their skills and transform them from students in a classroom to real-life journalists and experts on a topic. Each group returned from filming with the same results. I could see the students’ attitudes towards the project changing from caution to anticipation.
After all six groups finished filming, we tackled editing by meeting with one group at a time to select the best takes and add music and transitions. This was a tedious task, but students laughed throughout the process and seemed to genuinely have fun watching themselves on video and enjoying spending time together.
After the editing phase, three of the groups decided to go back to film things they missed during the first round or parts where they wished they would have performed better. Two of the groups spent over 15 hours recording, while the rest of the groups spent at least five. The students were engaged in the project and did not accept mediocre work from themselves, pushing themselves to memorize pages of text and record each sentence multiple times.
In regard to the group work, the students also shined. Although I had to spend a lot of time with some groups in the beginning to put out fires and negotiate conflicts, by the end of the filming all members of all groups worked together like a family. That in itself was an incredible transformation to see among my students, and a positive outcome of the project.
The completed video is nearly 40 minutes long and filled with much creativity and passion. The students were directly involved in every aspect of the project, from selecting the news components (sports, international news, etc.) as well as the stories (i.e. obesity), filming and acting on camera, editing, and even creating the rubric for evaluating the project. I know that I could not be prouder of my students’ achievements and I look forward to designing video projects with my students in the future. I would not be surprised if some of my students developed a further interest in journalism! Mauritania may now be ready for its first nightly news broadcast in English!
Follow the links to view the projects here:
Part Six: Weather Report (not available online)
This is so awesome Delia! You are so inspiring.
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