I’m going to try and do this in 20 minutes which will be challenging because I love to write.
Today in class I presented the take apart and/or deconstruction of the New York Times Special Edition section that I’ve been planning for a few weeks. I just finished writing the class summary for the day on our class blog. In the summary you can see the three observation stations I had set-up.
My head is full of big ideas I cannot yet connect from the extremely rich and fruitful conversation in our learning group yesterday where we used the response protocol to continue our analysis(?) of the lesson plan that I had presented. That lesson happened today.
All of the preparation was totally worth it in my opinion and I have not even read what my students wrote in their observations.
We began class outside the classroom- on the steps of our building- because I did not want the students to see the three observations stations before the exercise began. While we were outside I introduced this in-class exercise today in the context of our unit on Story and our Cultural Lens Research Project. I talked a little bit about how we are all influenced by stories and stories are told differently in different cultures. I gave the students the handout from
Andrew Stanton and TED (as in TED Talks) that illustrates the clues to a great story. Next, I talked about how storytelling takes different forms in different cultures and that we- Americans and consumers of American, British or Canadian entertainment have been exposed to the Western story arc over and over again. I then told them I was not sharing the story structure from other cultures because I didn’t want the student to try and match what I gave them, I wanted them to be self- reflective for our in-class exercise, thereby through observation they may allow the other story structures they have been exposed to or immersed in emerge.
Even though I’ve been studying story, storytelling and story structure in my own life for over 30 years this was still challenging to explain to my students so several times in my explanation I would stop and check for understanding by asking- “Does this make sense to you? What are your questions?”
For the in-class exercise, I asked the students to complete their observations in silence and I explained that this allows them to have a conversation with themselves and not be influenced by the natural desire to connect with another person and share a point of view. I went on to explain that our observations may or may not be affected by our cultural lenses and our life experiences, in order to fully explore and become aware of that perspective the observation must be done in silence. The students got it.
We spent 7 minutes on each observation station using this modified See-Think-Wonder worksheet. I created the worksheet right before class- like less than 5 minutes before class. I knew I wanted the students to record their observations and I had been re-reading the ADB thinking routines to use but none of them fit for the breadth and depth I was looking for within my time constraint.
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| Modified for use when observing visual presentation and structure. |
Yesterday, we had used a See-Think-Wonder for the take apart we are doing in my Computer Programming, Systems, and Robotics (CPSR) class. This morning before I prepped for PAF I did my prep for my afternoon CPSR class where we will be using a modified See-Think-Wonder with prompts geared toward observing a physical take apart of machinery or another object. The prompts did not fit for my exercise today so as I thought about my intention for the exercise and what I wanted my students to focus on I came up with one overarching question to guide their See Think Wonder.
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| Examining the images only observation station. |
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| Looking closely at the linear presentation observation station. |
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| Exploring the complexity of the original layout/format observation station. |
After the three rounds of observations were complete we had a brief 3-minute class reflection where I asked first “How did that feel?” to which the responses were ‘focused,’ ‘fast, it didn’t feel like 24 minutes,’ and ‘reflective.’ I like to ask this question because I feel it helps students integrate their experiences more personally and helps develop self- awareness. It ‘tunes’ the gut.
I then followed up with “Which of the observation stations was most impactful for you and why?’ Several students volunteered answers, each of the three observation stations were mentioned, some students preferring the images only as it invited you to examine details you may not have noticed if you were reading the surrounding text; some preferred the original format because they wanted the structure presented to them so they ‘knew’ how to interpret the information; and some preferred the linear layout explaining they preferred to engage with the information sequentially. There were observations made about the sizes at which the images were presented, how many on one page, their relation to each other and/or the surrounding text on the page as influencing their interpretations.
This exercise supports our larger class conversation about how all images presented to us in the media (which includes social media) are curated and consciously created with intention. This is part of the hidden or informal curriculum of ‘media literacy’ in my classroom where I hope that by the end of the semester the students are much more critical of their own media intake.
To wrap up this experience and transition to the remaining class time that was to be used for editing ongoing projects I asked the students to think about how they will present their work for the Cultural Lens Research project. I asked them to think about the size of the images that are a part of their project- the images of their reference photographers, the images they have been asked to create and the use of their summary paragraphs and/or expository text. We then transitioned into 30 minutes of editing images using Lightroom for ongoing projects.
Here at the end of my reflection for this long-planned lesson, I still think the preparation and planning was essential to the lesson going as planned- meaning the students were engaged in the thinking I had designed the lesson to invoke- looking closely, physically changing your perspective, exploring the inner workings (of design and design choices), and probing their own perspective.