Media Literacy- Pecha Kucha and summary of learning

Arriving at the end of my two week intensive summer session 2 class on media literacy we were asked to do a project called Pecha Kucha, a 20 slide/20 second presentation on things we looked at during our short time together. I had done a presentation like this in the past for a department overview so I was familiar with the format and not intimidated by the assignment. In fact, I thought it was a really cool way to culminate the end of the semester. Like many other times in this class I found myself jotting down notes to implement in my own class. 

I have not been in school formerly in over twenty years, although I have been through hundreds of hours of professional development, and self taught myself lots of the things I know. I compare my learning to the students featured in the hole in the wall by Sugata Mitra. This idea of independent learning was one that was brought up several times throughout the course when thinking about students and the way they learn. I really enjoyed learning about Wesch's ideas of a scaffolded classroom and hearing his ways of building deeper relationships with students. I also value connection and liked that he went beyond casual conversation and instead asked meaningful questions of his students. I was reminded of the history of education systems from Sir Ken Robinson and his thought's around standardized testing and independent learning really resonated with me as I thought about the way I structure my own class.  

I am a digital immigrant according to Prensky and  I know that my students are using technology and have access to things I didn't have available to me growing up. I think it is important to use the technology available to make the learning engaging beyond reading and lecturing and re-balance it with connection and conversations. Like Turkle I believe students need connection and like Boyd I believe they need to understand how to use the technology and how to become literate and informed about how they consume media.  

I grew up in a time without digital technology. According to Scott Noons  I used to identify as a technocrat, someone who would only use technology when  I had to.  Since the pandemic, and since I have spent so much time learning best practices with virtual learning and utilizing all the latest apps, I  feel I am a techno-traditionalist and on my way to being a techno-constructivist. I am getting good at using technology and I am more confident. I am also more connected to my why now that I have been an educator for over 20 years, and know that my lessons have meaning and intention. If I am showing a clip of a movie or using an app or doing an activity it is because it is connected to an objective not just because I think it is fun. 

Since I am familiar with lots of tech tools I decided for my final project, instead of focusing on one tool, I would focus on my syllabus.  I wanted to assess and critically look at one of my undergrad courses that I teach on human sexuality. I wanted to incorporate my learnings and positive experiences from this class into my own class. Before I started making changes I thought about Simon Sinek and intentionally about my why and what types of experiences I wanted my students to have.  I knew I wanted them engaged and participating.  When thinking about my why I focused on how I wanted students experiences to be different than mine growing up (learning about sex ed) and brainstormed a list of words I wanted my students to feel. 

I think having clear guidelines and expectations makes independent learning possible. I value time and think it is important and limited so I want to make the most out of it. I feel that by being intentional, organized, clear and consistent it allows my students to have accountability and autonomy. I think support is important so I want to set up spaces and places where students can get support from me, their classmates and know about resources on campus. I decided that my project would focus on pedagogy and updating my syllabus. I started color coding and hyperlinking everything they need, including slides and resources, so it is simplified and all in one place. I really wanted to cut down on the number of pages of my syllabus because I found it was overwhelming and students were not reading it. I hide a message for students to email me with their favorite candy bar. I reward the ones who send me the email but it is usually only a few students every semester. I really wanted it to become a living syllabus, similar to the one we used in this class, which I found easy to facilitate. 

For my final project I made a list of things I wanted to update which included utilizing various technology tools like blogs, podcasts and websites as a way of engaging students. I am creating a welcome video for students that explains the new syllabus and class format. I know I can still do a better job of creating an outside classroom environment to share resources, pictures of past projects and blogs.  I am going to explore setting up an instagram for project pictures and a google website for blog and picture sharing.  I am hoping that submitting through blogs will encourage my students to blog about other topics important to them and also help the reflections to reach folks outside class.  I also hope it will help build community and offer additional opportunities to connect with me outside class and after class has ended. I value the relationships formed and want to offer space to continue to share resources and stay in touch. I really enjoyed the slide about me and added that as a way to get to know students.  

I considered the ways in which I give credit for participation and attendance and how I might be able to adapt whether the exams I give are necessary.  I also really enjoyed creating my Pecha Kucha and will plan on using that platform as an option for end of the semester projects.  Finally, I went through each slide deck to see if there were areas I can step back and anti-teach.  The course I teach is set up to be self paced and students can jump ahead if they want so I created an assignment log/ tracker so students could keep track of  their progress.   I looked at both synchronous an asynchronous experiences to determine if there were opportunities to give up control and allow for more independence. I thought one area I can do this is how students submit their projects. Allowing them to use various methods will allow for increased creativity. 

I really appreciated having the time to think about how I would use the information learned. I have taken away a lot of things I can use in the future.  Some of these things were easy to implement and change right away and others I need to consider how to implement and need more time.  I will continue to update and remodel my syllabus over the summer. Much like a house remodel, it will never be done... there will always be something new to add or something that needs to change. I now have some new tools in my tool belt.   Thank you Dr Leslie Bogard for a great semester.