KAITLIN BARNES
SUMMER ENRICHMENT PROJECTS
Students learn that they can use individual or collective assets to navigate and challenge systemic injustices or inequity of opportunities, or to increase pride in cultural identity.
My school provides students with a unique opportunity to continue their learning during the summer months. Each summer, an enrichment course is taught to a group of rising fifth graders. I led the course in the summer of 2017, and I designed the course to incorporate both blended learning and project-based learning. The course focused on the topic of immigration and refugees, and students worked to design products that would help immigrants and refugees navigate the systemic injustices they faced after moving to Houston. By doing so, students learned how to use their own interests and skills to advocate for others.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
COURSE RATIONALE AND EXPLANATION
The course topic of refugees and immigration was chosen for three reasons. First, as my school is about 95% Hispanic, many of our students have parents who are immigrants, and some of our students are immigrants themselves. This was a topic that was extremely relevant on a personal level to the vast majority of our students. Second, many of our students have understandably been worried and frightened by the anti-immigrant rhetoric embraced by the Trump administration, and having students learn about this topic helped them feel more in control of this issue. Third, as Houston is the most diverse city in the nation, we have an extremely high population of immigrants and refugees, which meant that there were many guest speakers and organizations who were willing to help our students learn even more about this topic.
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One important component of a project-based learning course is that students work to create a project or product that is truly meaningful. The product that students create should have value and contribute in some way to the world around them. During the summer course, students worked in small groups to identify a need in Houston's immigrant and refugee community, and then they designed a product that would help address that need, thereby becoming advocates for this population. Along the way, students heard firsthand from immigrants, refugees, and the organizations who support them, and they studied different immigration and refugee movements that have happened throughout history. At the end of the summer, students presented their projects both to their summer school peers in other grade levels, and to the larger school and Houston community at a project expo.
The process of working together to create a project that could help immigrants and refugees was a powerful experience for students. By doing so, students learned how to use their collective assets, such as language abilities and technology skills, to help others in the Houston community navigate the injustices that are present for recent immigrants and refugees. In addition, for my students who identify as Hispanic, this activity helped increase their cultural pride because they were able to see the obstacles and hardships that many of their ancestors and/or current family members had to face in order to successfully live in America.
After the first week of the course, students brainstormed specific ways that we could provide assistance to immigrants and refugees living in Houston. At this point in the summer, we had heard from several guest speakers, including Judy Le, who came to the United States as a refugee during the Vietnam War, and Bellamy Kravitz, who came to Houston from Cameroon. (To read more about our guest speakers and view the summer course lesson plans, click here.) Judy touched on the importance of language and shared her personal stories of watching her parents struggle to learn English well enough to communicate with others. Bellamy discussed how frightening something as simple as going outside can be for refugees, since many are not used to the types of neighborhoods and streets that we have in Houston. We also heard from Valeria Alvarado, who is an immigrant from Mexico attending college in Pennsylvania. Valeria shared her story of feeling isolated at her college because many of her peers had a negative view of immigrants.
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Students used a platform called MindMup to brainstorm project ideas. This allowed them to collaborate with each other and build off of their ideas.
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These students were inspired by Bellamy's discussion of studying for and passing the U.S. Citizenship test. They make a reference to that when they say "Make a study guide" and "Test your mind to see what you know on the Kahoot." Kahoot is a popular quiz platform that allows users to make their own tests with multiple choice questions.
These students were clearly inspired by Valeria's talk (they even included a picture of her in the bottom right corner)and included several ideas about informing people about the struggles faced by immigrants and refugees and persuading people that immigrants help our country. They also make references to two other class activities we did to further explore these topics. The "Syrian adventure game" they refer to was an online choose-your-own-adventure game published by the BBC. We used this online simulation to help students understand the tough decisions that refugees have to go through when trying to leave their country. The picture of a hamburger was a reference to our lesson on the contributions of early immigrants to America.
Students were placed into collaborative groups based on their research interests and project ideas as identified through the brainstorming process. With their group members, students completed a digital work plan to help identify their action steps and anticipate potential obstacles. I used this work plan to provide feedback to the groups that students could refer back to at any time, and that I could refer to during my meetings with groups.
The digital work plans asked students to identify questions they planned on researching, how they planned on dividing the work, and how they planned to present their project to a broader audience. After students turned in their work plan, I provided them with feedback at the bottom of the document.
After selecting their project idea and assembling their work plan, students had time each day to work on putting their projects together. While many of them came into the course with a knowledge of the Google Suite (Google Docs, Google Slides, etc.), the project was a chance for them to spread beyond that platform and learn new technology skills. Ultimately, my students were able to come up with four distinct projects:
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An animated video aimed at students, informing them of how they can help immigrants and refugees at their schools
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A video that provided ways for Houstonians to help immigrants and refugees living around them, such as volunteering with PAIR (Partnership for the Advancement and Immersion of Refugees)
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A translation guide that provided Spanish-to-English translations of common phrases and items, such as school and grocery store vocabulary
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A Wix website that provided information for immigrants and refugees (such as a study game for the Citizenship test and a translate feature) and the general public (such as a choose-your-own-adventure game that students created using Inklewriter). Unfortunately, the website domain has expired so I am unable to include it in its entirety, but you can see a portion of it in the "Project Expo" section of this page.
This group of students created an animated video using FlipAClip and PowerDirector. They paired their knowledge of how to make immigrants and refugees feel welcome with these technology options to produce this video. Note: the beginning and end of the video has been clipped to protect student privacy.
This group of students created a video using Google Slides and Screencastify. They used their knowledge of resources to help immigrants and refugees to write a script for the video. Note: the beginning and end of the video has been clipped to protect student privacy.
This group of students used Google Slides to create translation flash cards that cover a variety of important topics, such as transportation, school, medicine, and groceries. These students are fluent Spanish speakers and were able to use their bilingual skills to create this project.
Another important component of project-based learning is that students have the opportunity to present their work to an authentic audience. To do this, I organized a project expo where students could present their work to their families and members of the Houston community. I sent invitations to student families, school staff, district officials, TFA-Houston staff members, Houston community members, and guest speakers. In addition, students practiced their presentation skills with younger students at a mock project expo, and they helped decorate the library and hallways with artifacts from our summer course.
This invitation was sent to all of our guest speakers and student families, in addition to representatives from Houston ISD, Teach for America, and the City of Houston.
This invitation was sent to the summer school staff and allowed teachers to sign their class up to visit the student-facing mock expo.
To provide students with practice before the actual project expo, I arranged for a mock expo to take place the day before. We invited students and teachers from the other summer school classes to visit our rooms and learn from our students' projects. This gave students practice in presenting to others, and prepared them for how to explain their topic and project in a way that was easy to understand. It also showed the younger students that they can be advocates for others, regardless of their age or status as a student.
At the practice expo, students had a chance to explain their projects to younger students. This gave them valuable practice in presenting their projects and answering questions.
At the project expo, guests were able to explore our summer course website, which featured student reflections on course activities and blog posts written by students. Of course, the main attraction of the expo was the student presentations. Students had a chance to share their projects with the guests by providing a brief explanation and rationale, showing off their project, and then responding to questions. Our project expo attracted over 50 guests representing different groups: students' families, school staff, district officials, Teach for America-Houston staff, and the City of Houston's Education Director. While most of the guests' attention was rightfully focused on the students, several guests made comments to me that they were amazed at what the students were able to create in such a short amount of time. Guests were also very impressed with the students' use of technology and their ability to speak articulately about such a complicated issue as immigration.
At the project expo, students dressed to impress and set up computers to help guests interact with their project. Each group also put together a poster ("Helping Hands") that explained their working process and the rationale behind their project.
At the expo, guests viewed student projects on the Chromebooks and then got to ask students questions about their work. In this picture, the City of Houston's Education Director, Juliet Stipeche, listens to one of my students explain the technology they used to create their video.
District officials from Houston ISD visited our project expo and tweeted about the experience. Students were also interviewed about their work by the district communications team (see "Teacher Reflection" below).
During the expo, the school library was set up with computers so that guests could explore our summer course website. The library was also decorated with images and items that reflected our course's title, "Faces of America." Students helped decorate the space, which gave them an increased sense of ownership over the event.
The process of designing a summer course and teaching in a blended/PBL format was a unique experience that has definitely impacted my teaching going forward. Through this summer course, I realized the power of units that are designed around common themes, so that students get a chance to dive deeper into their learning. I saw firsthand the power of primary sources and guest speakers on my students, which has influenced my teaching throughout the normal school year by inspiring me to design virtual field trips. I observed how technology can help students display their learning in unique and creative ways, and that students seem to have an innate growth mindset when it comes to learning about technology. Finally, I noticed an increase in student engagement because this course was set up in a way that allowed students to become advocates for others. Through the process of creating and displaying their projects, students felt like they had control over their learning and demonstrated an understanding that their voice and actions have values for others. For more reflections on this process from teachers, students, and parents, click the image below to watch our video that was published by Houston ISD.
The Houston ISD communications team visited our project expo and produced this video to advertise how Project-Based Learning is being used in the district.