Mixin’ it up: Students show and tell how they learn in ‘What’s Cool About My School’ video series
Pride. There’s a lot of places in New Brunswick that could do with a little more these days.
Not the chest-thumping defensive sort; the world’s got enough of that right now.
I’m talking about the kind of pride that comes hand-in-hand with the confidence in a job well done, an important lesson learned or the unexpected discovery of something special.
The kind of pride the students, teachers and parents in the Anglophone North (ASD-N) school district have been creating through ‘What’s Cool About My School’, a special storytelling project.
On the surface, this video series seems quite straightforward: a student interviewer, microphone in hand, conducts a series of short stand-up interviews with students, teachers, administrators and special guests about a particular topic or project at their school.
The initial goal was to help build some local school pride but along the way something else began to happen according to Meredith Caissie, ASD-N communications director and series co-creator.
“What I’ve heard anecdotally from parents is they don’t know what their kids are doing at school. The videos are sort of a window for them,” she says.
“Parents want to know, but you get into the high primary grades and middle school and high school and kids don’t talk. Parents want to be cool but they don’t know what to talk about. So the series has opened up some dialogue opportunities.”
What parents and others are seeing are authentic student-led conversations about how and what they’re learning.
The latest video features students from North and South Esk Elementary School in Sunny Corner showing viewers how they hop, skip and stomp through the school’s sensory path to help calm their anxieties, work off excess energy and cool down after gym class.
At Terry Fox Elementary in Bathurst they explored what it means to be a hero while across town students at Superior Middle School talked about how personalized learning is changing how they learn and think about math.
Students at Miramichi Rural School explained how they’re learning a second language via the French Language Opportunities in Rural Areas (FLORA) program.
Meanwhile, students at Nelson Rural School had fun with language courtesy of project-based learning led by Fredericton funk/hip hop musician and music festival favourite Stephen Lewis.
“When he [Lewis] walked into that room, I watched some of the quietest students in my class transform into creative geniuses,” said middle school teacher Gerrit Bosma in the Nelson video.
“What happened is what needs to happen more in school. People saw an end goal to poetry. It wasn’t on a piece of loose leaf anymore, it wasn’t being typed up in Microsoft Word. It had an energy to it and I think he [Lewis] brought that from day one.”
In addition to showing what students are doing in school, the video series is itself an example of project-based learning, a model for teaching and learning that allows students to spend an extended period of time exploring and experimenting with ways to solve a problem.
‘What’s Cool About My School’ teaches students how to formulate their thoughts, ask questions and then determine how to use storytelling techniques to deliver information and help others learn.
While Caissie works with the co-host to talk through the story arc, Craig Duplessie, ASD-N’s technology lead, teaches students the technical elements of video storytelling, explaining how to block shots, create a storyboard, shoot b-roll and edit video.
“Students realize this is a medium for them to tell their stories, it gives them ownership,” says Duplessie.
“We are such a big district geographically and we often don’t know what each school is doing. This is one way to celebrate but also for someone at the other end of the district to say ‘hey, that’s cool and I want to try that in my school.’”
To find out how to get the ‘What’s Cool About my School’ project to visit your Anglophone North school, click on this link.
To find out how to create a similar project to your school or district, reach out to Communications Director Meredith Caissie at the Anglophone North district office.
Lisa Hrabluk is a writer and owner of Wicked Ideas Media. Find me on Wicked Ideas’ Facebook page or on my personal LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
School Works is a solutions journalism project and partnership between Wicked Ideas and the New Brunswick Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (EECD).
