At this point, I feel very much at the beginning of my capstone journey. I just finished my school year and it’s accompanying final projects that I needed to resolve before I head to summer. I am ready to start focusing more on the capstone work. I was able to collect some video clips of students prior to the last day of school but I will need to review, sort and edit them for my mini-documentary. I do feel like I have something important to share. If we’ve learned nothing else over the last year and a half, we know that students must know how to learn and why it matters to them and our world. I feel strongly that developing agency isn’t just a healthy and helpful way to approach school, but a necessity for our students to be able to maneuver future challenges. So much of what I do is really about trying to inspire others to think bigger and be bold in doing what will help our students be most successful despite some of the barriers that exist or are imposed on us as educators.
So for my mini-documentary I want to inspire. I want my audience of educators to hear what I heard from students, their spark and excitement for learning when they are given opportunities to use their voice and choose their path as a learner. In reading and viewing some of the resources for this week, I think it’s going to be important to capture as much as I can of the students' journey through my action research project. I liked what Paula Bernstein said in her article on short documentaries, about the importance of an “emotional arc” or emotional journey that makes the audience feel for what’s happening on screen. I thought Sarah Magallano’s video was a great example of this as she shared her vulnerability with the losses she’s experienced.
From the SAGE white paper on educational video, I was reminded of the importance of images and visuals. We have talked about this so many times over the last year. I thought about it while watching Kenny Stills' video, “Why I Kneel” as the images and video clips from the civil rights movement were juxtaposed with his football career. As a novice and with limited time, it will be a challenge but I will try to use visuals in some way that helps me tell the story of students developing their agency in response to changes in their classrooms.
From the SAGE white paper on educational video, I was reminded of the importance of images and visuals. We have talked about this so many times over the last year. I thought about it while watching Kenny Stills' video, “Why I Kneel” as the images and video clips from the civil rights movement were juxtaposed with his football career. As a novice and with limited time, it will be a challenge but I will try to use visuals in some way that helps me tell the story of students developing their agency in response to changes in their classrooms.