Years 12 and 13
Description of the class
The group that was observed consisted of twelve students, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years old. When there is a team activity, they are arranged into groups of four people. Lessons last an hour and a half, there is usually one or two absences and are mostly held inside of the school.
Content Timeline
School year began with Year twelve students learning about magazine covers and their graphic elements, such as the masthead, main image and taglines. They were asked to analyse contemporary issues and to discuss their visual aspects. Furthermore, students also conducted research on double page spreads and how layout affects the reader. This would later on serve as reference for their final project.
The following task asked pupils to, in groups of four, write a narrative for a movie. This movie would be the centerpiece of their magazine cover and news spread. They elaborated a story and decided on casting, locations and props. Next, they sketched what their final products would look like, as the film story would be the same, but each of them were supposed to direct their share of the photoshoot and edit magazine differently. During one lesson, students gave feedback to each other regarding their sketches.
The photoshoots happened on the following weeks, with students directing each other, handling prosthetics make up and taking photographs. They managed logistics and time accordingly. Finally, they were ready to review their pictures, choose the ones more appropriate and with better quality for their magazines and edit them using Adobe Photoshop. Lastly, they wrote the news article and developed their final pieces.
High Points
Year twelves are dedicated students with amazing behaviour. They are united as a whole class and support themselves constantly. Positive interdependence is present in every lesson, with peers helping each other on tasks, solving problems together and keeping the mood always light and happy. In addition to that, they are open to feedback and most achieve good results in coursework, showing a reasonable amount of dedication to it.
Low Points
As common members of their generation, according to Thompson (2014), these millennials can get distracted and absorbed by their smartphones. This is not usually a problem, but sometimes it can hinder their overall progress.
Recommendations
Year twelve students are dedicated, but can get distracted and be less productive than they could. In order to try to enhance their process and stimulate even better results, it was suggested similar foundation work to the Year tens, with clear behaviours to be practiced for each lesson. In addition to that, a structure for feedback exchange was also recommended, as it was observed that students are supposed to develop critical skills during the school year and they appeared to be somewhat lost when asked to carry out this process.
Finally, in an attempt to stimulate their productivity even further, the Pomodoro Technique (Cirillo, 2011) was suggested, as it could be a good alternative to gamify more bureaucratic tasks. This technique focuses on listing specific tasks to execute and undertaking short twenty five-minute sprints, with five-minute breaks in between each one, in order to increase focus. While on a sprint, the subject is not allowed to any distractions, limiting procrastination to the specific intervals. After four “pomodoros”, or sprints, the person is authorized to take a longer break for twenty five minutes. This is said to limit distractions and strengthen time management skills, as one would understand how much time and effort each task needs in order to be completed (Cirillo, 2011).
Primary Feedback
In consultation with the Year twelve teacher, it was decided that students’ behaviour was acceptable as it is, with no need to practice specific actions during each lesson. In addition to that, due to the fact that for the period of a few weeks the author was focused more on aiding with the year tens, there was no appropriate occasion to test the Pomodoro Technique. Nevertheless, the teacher believes that they could benefit from that, if integrated in their classroom culture. Finally, the recommendation that was approved and managed to be tested was the Feedback structure, as it was very convenient for their coursework that students we taught how to do it.
Feedback Workshop and dynamic
In order to teach students how to give feedback to one another, a brief workshop was created. It consisted in two parts: a brief lecture that introduced the basic concepts and next an actual feedback session, where pupils could practice how to engage in the process under supervision.
Presentation
Considering that the target audience for the lecture was students from sixteen to eighteen years old, the presentation was developed to be as light and easy going as possible, with friendly and humorous images to maintain the pupils’ attention.
In regards to structure and content, the presentation was an adaptation from the principles taught at Hyper Island, which are largely based on Non Violent Communication. It was executed as a different version of it, since the students were giving each other feedback on their work, not on their behaviour as team members. Nevertheless, the main principles of Nonviolent Communication still apply, as it was still a process based on listening to one another and developing their way of thinking. “With NVC we learn to hear our own deeper needs and those of others. Through its emphasis on deep listening — to ourselves as well as others — NVC helps us discover the depth of our own compassion. This language reveals the awareness that all human beings are only trying to honor universal values and needs, every minute, every day.” (Center for Nonviolent Communication Website, 2014)
According to the Hyper Island Toolbox, “Effective feedback is a way to create a dialogue with greater clarity. It focuses on two things: honest self-expression — exposing what matters to oneself in a way that’s likely to inspire compassion in others, and empathy — listening actively.” Taking that into consideration, the presentation was divided into explaining the purpose of giving feedback, which is to develop ourselves, to promote growth amongst our team members, and to generate trust and openness in groups; how to become an effective feedback giver, which was based on being timely, specific about one’s behaviours or work and to speak only for one’s self; and finally how to become a good feedback receiver, which encompasses being patient, active listening to what others say without adopting a defensive posture and later reflecting on what was said. Students were told that the ultimate good behaviour when receiving feedback is to be understanding.
Next, they were given a clear structure to follow when writing comments about each other. In retrospect, I included that due to the fact that writing feedback is a difficult process and a step by step form aided me to develop myself in it. Taking into consideration that their previous feedbacks were vague and unclear, it was also suggested that they fragmented the product they were analysing in different elements.
Workshop
In order to engage students in the actual process of giving feedback beyond simple theory, a short workshop was executed. The class was divided into four groups for an external brief they were supposed to attend, which asked them to create a short advertisement video. After the presentation ended, students were prompted to give elevator pitches about their main idea for the video. After every group presented, we rotated the classroom, so each team could give feedback to one of the other groups. This was done in this fashion due to the fact that in their previous session, students were asked to give feedback to every single peer, in a very short amount of time. That might have been a factor that made their comments short and overly vague.This time, students had a longer period of time to write one single and thought through feedback post it to a group.
Secondary Feedback
Their teacher found the presentation and the workshop inspirational and told me that all students were all engaged during it. She believes that most of them did pick up some skills of it, but more practice is needed to reinforce the use of these abilities. She also stated that the main keywords taught in this session were different from the ones that she taught three students the year before. That lead to an uneasy feeling on these three pupils, as they were slightly confused while trying to execute both techniques at the same time.
What happened to Year 13?
Despite having devised a tool to be tested with the three girls of Year thirteen, it was not possible to advance in the process. After developing the pitch for the Develop phase of the Double Diamond, it was noticed that there were far too many tools to be tested in a short amount of time. With that being said, a decision had to be made when choosing.
The Year thirteen group had a fantastic team dynamic, including promotive interaction, individual accountability and interpersonal skills. The only positive interdependence element that they lacked was group processing, and it was recommended that they would attend a reflection workshop to later engage in team reflection sessions, with a member of staff or myself as a facilitator.
However, due to the fact that they were the group with the least amount of elements missing from their interactions, it was decided that the study would focus on years ten, eleven and twelve. These classes had more to discover in the realm of cooperative learning, and were favoured by the final decision.
Nevertheless, the recommendation still maintains and if the client would like to proceed with the work after this project is over, it could be done.
