See how project-based learning, virtual scenarios, and digital storytelling motivated my students to grasp and apply complex, abstract concepts. Participants will learn how to construct similar virtual scenarios and hear about the outcomes from students’ projects and their evaluations of the activity.
Sometimes we take for granted how media agents shape the perceptions of certain situations, like the recent shooting of Michael Brown. The stories broadcasted were rife with racial tension and insinuations, accusations and finger pointing; and sadly, everyone involved suffered. Teaching these concepts to students is equally as challenging and emotional. In this project, students in a college level American Minority Relations course learned about the power of media, the plight of the minority, and the power of digital storytelling by producing either an authentic news article or a “televised” news report after becoming “rookie reporters”, where they “interviewed” witnesses, analyzed evidence, and complied to their new boss’s demands – in a virtual crime scenario. Centering students’ inquiry on a project-based and authentic driving question can generate interest, motivation, and curiosity to explore a scenario on their own and deeply solidify their understandings of the concepts to be successful 21st century learners.
The shift to an information-laden society constitutes a change in curricular design and related learning theory. Since our society is overcome with information available instantaneously at our fingertips, encouraging today’s learners to construct their own knowledge using the tools and methods with which they are most comfortable and familiar seems like a logical step in curricular redesign. Classes should contain authentic, constructivist experiences that encourage discovery through students’ construction of knowledge of the world. Project-based curricula can promote deeper understandings of a discipline as students actively construct meanings embedded in projects.
However, encouraging students to become the voices of the voiceless through digital storytelling is also an important skill to teach. We are all storytellers in our own way and of our own lives. Societies and social life are therefore a collection of our single stories; some of them shared, some of them more reflections of dominant ideologies, and some of them representative of the struggles of minority groups. Students who can take the role of the “other” in stories will become more engaged and empathetic citizens. My students were given the following assignment:
“Congratulations! You’ve just been hired at Paradigm Media and your first assignment is a tough one. You’ve been tasked with producing a news article or video broadcast concerning a recent robbery in a neighborhood that’s experiencing some serious racial tension. Your new boss, Mr. Simmel is a very rich white man who has close friends in the predominantly white police department and city government. They are all expecting you handle this report ‘appropriately – and not like Ferguson, Missouri’, but you’re not quite sure what that means....”
Students began their quests by visiting the virtual “office” of their new boss on a Google Site. The boss offered insight hinting at the political (and racially charged) climate of the city. Students then began their research and went out into the field to investigate the story by following the scenario from link to link – interviewing witnesses, reading police reports, and analyzing police sketches – some of which contained bias, were misleading, or openly conflicted others. Students took notes throughout so they could produce an authentic news article or record a video broadcast that told the story of the robbery, but also helped contain the racial tension in the neighborhood. They were instructed to follow their new boss’s “vague” instructions, keeping in mind how things like media influence, the town’s racial tensions, and powerful people control what gets released. Would they get fired for what they wrote? How would they choose to report the news?
Upon completion, students were also asked to reflect on their understandings of the media, powerful people and industries, and race and ethnic relations in the U.S. They were also asked to evaluate the activity as a whole and their experiences doing a project-based performance task over a traditional research paper. This activity has run every semester since Fall 2014, and in every course it has been wildly successful. Articles and broadcasts are largely authentic, and students enjoy the activity immensely. Many complain about the frustrations involved in working with minimal information and feel personally upset that they feel they cannot report the “true” story for fear they will get fired. The connections students make between media power and race and ethnic relations are extremely encouraging and their abilities to tell the stories of powerless groups was promising.
This session will provide participants the opportunity to see how project-based learning, virtual scenarios, and digital storytelling motivated my students to grasp and apply complex, abstract concepts. Participants will learn about the instructional design components used to construct the virtual crime scenario as well as the outcomes from students’ projects and their evaluations. By the end of the session, participants will have the basic skills needed to create their own project-based virtual scenarios to encourage 21st century learning.