Benefits of the Partnership
This partnership was a win-win-win-win
situation. All stakeholders benefited from participation. Those benefits
are summarized below.
Benefits to the University
Partners:
- Undergraduate students
observed sound uses of technology;
- A university professor
conducted an extensive research project;
- An ongoing partnership
with a local K-12 school district was established and maintained.
Benefits to the Local K-12
School District Partners:
- Middle school students
used university computer facilities;
- Middle school students
enhanced their research, language arts, and critical thinking skills;
- An ongoing partnership
with the local university was established and maintained.
Benefits to Participating
Students:
- Students gained an understanding
of how to effectively use different media;
- Students gained self confidence;
- Students enjoyed doing
their language arts assignments using digital media more than assignments
using more traditional media;
- Students boosted their
creativity and professionalism;
- Students learned how to
work well in groups;
- Students gained insight
into higher education by being on a university campus that fosters
an appreciation for continuing education and lifelong learning;
- Students learned from
each other as well as from the project facilitators;
- Students learned to meet
deadlines for creating complex digital media projects;
- Students had access to
advanced technologies.
Benefits to the Partnership
Facilitators:
- Our students were highly
motivated by authentic, interdisciplinary tasks;
- Our students' engagement
and effort were at a very high level;
- Our students took responsibility
for their learning and enabled us, the facilitators, to be midwives
rather than information bankers (Freire, 1970);
- Our students collaborated
with peers and appreciated others' contributions;
- Our reciprocal teaching
developed naturally in this environment;
- Our collective resources
allowed for differentiated instruction.
What we Gained from Participation
in the Project
As authors with a collective
voice, we thought we would end our article with short pieces by each
of us so readers could also get an idea of our individual voices. Below,
each of us has expressed in our own words what we gained from participation
in our project.
Alice's Perspective
If I accept
you as you are, I will make you worse.
If I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming,
I help you become that.
- Goethe
I am a constructivist teacher.
I believe in active learning that is challenging, authentic, multidisciplinary,
and joyful. I strive to create classrooms connected to the real world
and tailored to the particular needs and purposes of individual learners.
I work collaboratively with students, other teachers, and members of
local and global communities. My goal is for students to develop a sense
of ownership about their learning, and ultimately a lifelong love of
learning.
This
project illustrated constructivism at its best. We were truly a community
of learners working together to make meaning out of a technology tool,
iMovie™, that was new to all of us, students and teachers alike.
Working with Valerie Naish
and her curious, energetic students was a joy. Not only did it keep
me "in touch" with the realities of K-12 education (a good thing for
professors training students to become teachers), it offered me an opportunity
to stretch and grow to meet the challenges of bright, inquisitive, and
creative middle school students. Within a short period of time, we formed
mutual trust and respect for one another that still exists today.
The classroom environment
that Valerie and I sought to create invited critical thinking, alternative
solutions, and "thinking outside the box." I was overjoyed at the numerous
times when I learned something new from one of the students. When I
was stumped by a student question, I never hesitated to call on the
collective expertise of everyone in the room, as I thought of all of
us as co-learners working together to make sense of how digital video
allowed each of us to communicate with others in novel and unique ways.
Working with Valerie and all her students helped make me a better learner
and a better teacher; technology was the tool that enhanced our teaching
and learning.
Valerie's Perspective
There
is nothing more valuable to me as a teacher than to have my students
want to learn MORE! It is the ultimate achievement in teaching when
your students become so intrinsically motivated that they spend vast
amounts of time, outside of the classroom, on learning. This project
gave my students that motivation. It demonstrated to me firsthand the
value of quality integration of technology into the curriculum, and
how authentic tasks and assessments lead to high student achievement.
For many of my students,
I believe this was their first experience in using technology as a learning
tool. It was exciting to see their approach to the learning environment
change as technology was implemented to accomplish their goals. Differentiation
of instruction and product came naturally to me as students began to
take responsibility for their learning. The reflection logs students
completed gave Dr. Christie and me great insight into their individual
needs, concerns and accomplishments.
Collaborating with Alice
Christie, a university professor, was also a project highlight for me.
Dr. Christie shared her vast experience, in both the area of technology
and classroom instruction, to make this project the success it became.
While I had worked with colleagues in the past, I had never collaborated
to the degree Dr. Christie and I were able to do on this project. We
planned, evaluated and reflected upon each phase of the project, monitoring
and adjusting to meet student needs and increase not only motivation,
but student success, as well.
Now, three years after the
completing of the project, as I see the way students continue to incorporate
technology into their learning, and how they continue to be motivated
learners, I am reminded that it is not so much the technology that makes
the difference in the classroom, but the ability to choose the tools
of discovery and the medium in which to share their learning that makes
all the difference.
