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Brandon
Johnson
Jason Schrage
08
Project
Summary
Brandon Johnson
Jason Schrage
On Friday, April 4, 2008 Horseheads Middle
School conducted its 5th WWII Teach-In Day at the Wings
of Eagles Discovery Center. This project began in 2001 with
approximately 30 presenters who lived through the WWII experience
and 100 students. Over the years it has grown to include all 8th
grade teachers and students at Horseheads Middle School.
During the WWII Teach-in day groups of 3-5
students interviewed individuals that lived through this period of
history and afterwards write an essay about their presenter. The
stories are then collected and collated into one memory book and
sent out to the presenters. This year was unique because we added a
second project that incorporated the use of digital cameras,
microphones and Photostory 3 for Windows software.
In addition to taking notes during the
interview students were asked to take pictures of their presenter
and the artifacts they brought in. Students then used these
pictures to create a movie that told their presenters story.
Preparing our students for this years Teach-in
Day proved to be a daunting task. Students were taught how to use
Photo Story 3 for Windows starting in the Fall of 2007. They
completed Photostory Projects during units on Immigration and the
Great Depression. The rationale for this was to teach the students
how to use the software and get them used to the interface prior to
the teach-in day. This proved to be beneficial because there is not
a lot of time at the end of the school year to teach students how to
use this software.
In January we began planning for the actual
event. The PTO president was contacted to assist with parent
volunteers and refreshments. Our district public relations
specialist was recruited to help advertise for presenters as well as
get media coverage and we had several meetings with our Middle
School administrators and the event coordinator from the Wings of
Eagles Discovery Center to determine a date and time schedule for
the WWII Teach-In Day. In February a letter went home with students
seeking presenters and informing parents of the WWII Teach-In Day
project.
The last week of February students were given
a contract to participate in the WWII-Teach in day. In order to
participate students had to complete all homework assignments
pertaining to WWII and have no more than 2 office referrals during
the month of March.
Throughout the month of March students learned
about WWII through traditional classroom methods utilizing
cooperative learning, lectures, class discussions and a variety of
multimedia ranging from interactive whiteboards, movies and
websites. This was necessary in order to provide the background
knowledge needed for the interviews.
One week prior to the Teach-In Day students
were prepped for the event. Student teams were created with an even
mix of high, medium and low students. The ideal team size for this
project seems to be four however teams of three and five also work
and are often necessary because presenters often sign up but cannot
make the event and call and cancel during the last week.
Flexibility with teaming is an absolute necessity for this type of
project. Teams are then assigned a presenter and given some basic
background information about their presenter in order to develop
appropriate questions. Students receive a packet of information and
instructions for conducting the interviews. Students were taught
the art of questioning and learned the difference between an open
and closed question. Teams developed a set of 25 open ended
questions to prepare for the interview. Much of the time this week
was also spent teaching and practicing basic etiquette. We went
over the reasons it is important to dress formally for the event.
We discussed basics such as eye contact, smiling and shaking their
presenters hand when they first meet them. Student groups were also
given the task of developing a small thank you gift for their
presenter. Some students made and signed cards, some baked cookies
and others brought in flowers.
On April 4 we conducted the WWII Teach-In
Day. We requested that WWII presenters arrive between 8 – 8:30 AM
to find their table, set up their mementoes, enjoy some
refreshments, socialize and tour the museum. Students were bussed
from the Middle School and were on site around 8:45 AM. Two eighth
graders sang the national anthem and both our administrator and
superintendent addressed the audience. Students interviewed their
presenters from 9 – 10 AM. From 10-10:15 students checked their
facts/notes while presenters took a short break and for the final
15-20 minutes students met again with their presenters to wrap up
the interview, ask a few questions for clarification and present
their thank you gifts. Students were back at school by 11AM.
After the lunch periods students did not have
any regular classes for the afternoon. Instead each team met again
to write up a rough draft of the essay. All teams had access to at
least one computer to help facilitate this process. Each team
member was required to write at least 1 paragraph. A shared drive
on the districts network allowed students to combine all paragraphs
easily. Overall students had about 2 hours of team time to write
their rough drafts. This worked well because the interviews were
still fresh in student’s minds. For homework each individual
student was required to take a copy of the rough draft home to be
proof read by 1 adult.
The week following the teach-in day was spent
revising the reports and making Photo Stories. The computer labs
and were signed out and made available throughout the week. We
quickly realized that trying to complete both the Photo story
project and make the revision was a lot to accomplish in 1 week and
could have spent one week on each.
Overall, we would have to say that our World
War II Teach-In Day project was a great success. We had over 300 8th
graders interviewing 83 people who lived through the World War II
Time period. It will be a memorable experience for our students and
the participants all seemed to enjoy themselves as well.
Being that this is not the first time we have
undertaken this project, there were a lot of things that we had
ironed out and running smoothly. Our process for contacting the
participants and having them register seemed to run very smoothly.
Our building’s Library Clerk acted as out liaison with the
participants; taking names, making phone calls, and handling the
cancellations, which are inevitable in an undertaking of this size.
By this point as well, our process for having
students edit and revise their essays also seemed to run fairly
smoothly. We have a very clear cut outline of what the students are
expected to write about, and the students are given ample time, in
school and out, to make the necessary corrections and edits to make
a final copy worthy of publication.
In addition, having the assistance of local
businesses and organizations was also a great help. The Wings of
Eagles Discovery Center donated their large hangar to us so that we
could house the large numbers that we have without having to split
them up all over our own building. Also, Corning Incorporated
volunteered to publish the memory book that the students created as
a full color magazine, a big improvement over the previous year’s
memory books that were printed and bound by BOCES Print Shop.
There were also a few items which we would
like to improve on further in subsequent years. We had students
create a narrated slide show using Photo Story for each of their
presenters. While these came out fairly well, we would like to try
to make these a more rich media experience. By using Windows Movie
Maker, we could embed more video footage. Jason and I both used to
video cameras to capture footage this year, but we were not able to
have students do actual video interviews as we would like, due to
the lack of the sheer number of cameras necessary and the necessity
of private interview areas to keep the surrounding noise down.
Also, we are always looking for a way to make
the entire process run more smoothly. Although the essays came out
well, the revision process was longer than we anticipated, due to
the fact that the students were writing collaborative essays. The
essays, prior to revision, sounded very disjointed and choppy and
required a lot of tweaking by the groups for them to flow smoothly.
Ideally, we would like to have all students write their own essay
about their interviewee, but this would pose challenges for the
memory book we create, which would then exceed 300 pages and bee too
unwieldy to publish.
Overall, we greatly enjoyed doing the World
War II Teach-In Day project. It is always a lot of work on our
part, but the students get a great wealth of knowledge and enjoyment
from it, and it also serves as an opportunity to bridge the gap
between young and old.
2008 Teach in Day Packet for Students
Presenter Feedback Form
Registro-Al Anonymous Document
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WWII table MAP 2008
Johnson Schrage
08 Refection in Word
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