CURR 501 Final Narrative: Student Voice and Choice!!

        

The picture is my poster idea for the brochure cover contest (made on Canva)!  I believe the best learning happens when students are in a safe space. This space could be in or

out of the school building but it has to be a place where students feel comfortable and free to be

themselves. This space should enhance them to think outside the box and explore the “unknown”.

This should be a  space where students are interested in what they’re learning and can even make

mistakes, because what better way to learn than to learn from your mistakes! Initially when I enrolled in this class and saw that the topics were going to be based on Media and Literacy and how that reflects on teaching and student learning, I got anxious! I’m not a teacher so I wasn’t sure how I was going to reflect on my experiences in this class (I wasn’t even sure of what I was going to do my final project on) but as time went on and this class continued I started to learn more and more about myself! Sure I’m not a teacher in the traditional school type way, but I am an educator who challenges the youth that I work with to push themselves and try something new. After school programs got me out of my comfort zone and helped me realize things about myself that I never knew, so I want to do that with my after school youth. If they’re not learning a new skill around me, then they’re learning something new about themselves and I find that  just as important to learn! 

As an after school instructor I not only want to challenge my youth, but I also want them to build on any interests that they may have as well. I want my youth to have moments where they’re laughing and having fun while they learn, so much fun that they may forget that they’re actually still learning! After watching the Ted Talk, Build a School in the Cloud I really resonate with what Sugata Mitra had discussed. So for my final project, I’d like to follow Sugata Mitra’s example in collaborating with youth on a project and help build it with them. Not just telling them what to do and how to do it but instead just asking them guiding questions that will prompt them into finding their own answers. I really like how student choice and perspective is taken into consideration with  Mitra. Learning should be based on interests and students should have a say in what they're learning and be able to collaborate with their teachers/mentors in how to bring their interests into account when it comes to learning. That’s why I’d like to improve my after school learning space by giving youth more autonomy over program selection and brochure designs! 

How program selection normally works at my job The Providence After School Alliance is that a group of Site Coordinators (including myself) get together in the summer and pick from a list of program applications that we receive from providers and pick the programs that we feel that the youth would like to do over the school year. We sign a contract with the approved providers and then we put all the selected programs on a brochure and pass them out to students to “check off”. Although we receive a good amount of brochures back from students, every now and then I ask students who didn’t submit a brochure why they didn’t and they’ll say that “nothing interested them”. And thinking to myself if I’m really trying to start advocating for student voice and choice then why don’t I give every youth a chance to pick out the program options themselves, I mean, they’re the ones who have to sit in these programs not me it’s only fair right? 

So how I’d like to go about this is to go over the program provider applications with both Site Coordinators AND students and let the students discuss why or why not to reject or accept a program. Then in the Spring when the school year ends I could give the whole school a survey to take, asking them various questions like: Whether or not they joined a program over the school year? If they didn't, why? Is there another program option that they’d like to see in the brochure next year? Is there anything that they’d like to do that the brochure never offers? Then I’d take all those surveys and use that when collaborating with the students the following year on program provider applications again!

How would I tie technology into this? Well I’ve already started a Google Forms survey template (not yet completed but currently in the works) that I’d send out to the whole school at the end of the school year  regardless if students joined a program or not! In this way I can obtain student feedback on the programs that were selected, what programs they’d like to see and if there’s anything that they’re interested in that is not currently offered. And what’s even better about Google Forms  is that the results can be unanimous and I can save the results on a Google Drive and it’ll be saved forever! I was thinking of then using the students who are in our After School student government to narrow down all the survey results once they’re in and from there the students will be able to pick their choice of what programs end up on the brochure for the following year! I also would really love for students to design the brochures instead of it always being the same image every year and in one color (lame). When it comes to the brochure idea I’m sure that there are plenty of design creating tools out there that could be in use, like canva for example. I can ask all students who would  like to create a brochure cover to do so on whatever platform of their choice.  Then I’d  have a contest with the larger school population (maybe in the cafeteria or an organized pep rally) to which students can vote on what design they like best. During this whole student-led process, I’d just sit back and let the youth decide, like Mitra I’d just ask them guiding questions every now and then to keep them on track but would like for them to take the wheel on their learning adventure!

As an educator, I’m not only going to attempt to give my students more voice and choice, but I am going to start following Dr. Mike Wecsh’s mountain analogy. Just because some youth are able to pick up on certain subjects and topics quicker than others doesn’t mean that those students have won the race up the learning mountain. Through his TedTalk Learning from Baby George, I was able to learn that life itself is a learning process and that we should never give up on ourselves because there is so much to learn about us! Learning is not a race! In life there are going to be two types of students that we all face; students who “breeze through life smoothly” and are able to get up the mountain fast and there are students who struggle to even take their first step! Students who can’t climb up the mountain as fast shouldn’t feel discouraged as they are still learning and can still get to the top of the mountain as long as they keep pushing themselves to move forward and not settle with staying behind. We as educators should be there to be cheerleaders to the youth who are at the bottom of the mountain and push them to keep going and remind them that learning is not a race! Learning is something that we keep on doing over time and and sometimes we’re going to go through our share of struggles but we shouldn’t take that as failures or reasons to give up, rather, we should take them as learning experiences and reasons to keep on going! Overall, this class has taught taught me that yes I may be a Digital Native of whom fails to learn how to type with two hand, and yes I am going to start paying a lot more attention to Disney Princess movies, but it’s also taught me something much bigger, how to be a support in my student’s learning even though I’m not a traditional teacher, I’m a cheerleader!


I will cherish everything that I was able to learn in this class with you all! Take care and have a great summer! Thank you all!

My Copy of the Final Project Assessment

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