Day 1:

• How well did your Hook engage students?
  What was their reaction to the hook?
  
  No doubt the promise for students to play make believe candidate is a very strong hook. The letter hook is a frame that helps perhaps only marginally. I do feel on some level that they are responding to the task which calls for them to the task of "educating" the rest of the school community to see through the illusions of political propaganda.
  
  
• What would you do differently and why?
  
  
  1. Written in the directions that for part one that they need to uncover multiple examples of several candidates participating in the similar act of propaganda. (ex. Photos with children)
     
     
  2. Allot for more discovery time so they can uncover the themes. I found that I had spoon-fed some themes for them to discover rather than themselves discovering them for themselves. I think I will include some form of a discovery hunt for them to see the trends in propaganda such as :
     
     
     • I love minorities!
     • I will protect you!
     • I love America!
     • I am a friend of the earth!
     • The elderly can count on me!
     • I believe the children are our future.
     • I support the working man.
     
     I would rather have students uncover this than me telling them to find them outright. This though will take another day to accomplish. from that point, we could then assign which theme the groups would select for their paster campaign.
     
     
  3. Some logistics I let go until a bit too late. Silly things like securing enough scissors, glue sticks, and poster boards were easy to get but I was an aspect I did not even think about until today.
  
  
• What what would you repeat and why?
  
  I would still repeat handing out the a hard copy of the project to them. I considered for a moment to be paperless but then I thought how important it was to have something tangible in their grasp rather than always to look to the corresponding web page.
  
  
• Did you do anything prior to starting the project to prepare students to be successful with this type of project?
  
  Prior to the project I had introduced students to the concept of spin control and the power of image over the public through watching clips of s everal films PBS "Illusions of News" and "Journeys with George". These clips helped pull back the curtain of the politician's cynical use of image to dupe an uncritical public.
  
  
• Other observations, comments, challenges, and/or successes?
  
  This part of the project is not as creative as the second half so there is not the initial pop into it excitement as there is with more creative projects.

Day 2:

• What did students spend their time with today?
  
  Today students assembled images of the candiadates using the resource page from the class web page to link them to the candidate's web pages. As they collect ed the images, they saved them into a folder in the student server under our class folder marked politics and with their own folder with their theme. They found enough images and they began to put together their poster. Not all finished exactly today. I adjusted just a bit to allow for some time on day three if they needed. First period was a bit more ahead of ninth hour in assembling their posters.
  
  
• Are students finding your project pages and resources helpful?
  
  They are using the link pages initially. They are the google generation so the image search is much more appealing to them rather than being a bit more patience looking through the candidate's photo gallery. Regardless, the photos they are finding look great. One group has narrowed their images just to politicians holding babies. It really hits hard when you see several candidates doing the same thing. I think the hallway will look fantastic once we put up the posters next week.
  
  
• What have students said or done to indicate they understand or do not understand the task?
  
  I am really impressed with the way they are assembling the images. The are seeing the illusions of the propaganda unfold before their eyes as the juxtapose the images of the several candidates and their themes next to each other on the poster.
  
  
• What are your plans concerning sharing the project rubric with students?
  
  I plan on sharing the rubric before they finish the poster and before they start their original candidate ads. i am considering making the bulk of he points come from the individual ads they make. The poster is more collabrative and should not reflect so much in the grade.

During the Project A:

• What actions have you implemented in class that have you facilitating students learning rather than guiding students learning?
  
  As I mentioned before, the pursuit of images is farly self directed however i think I will use a more exploratory approach to having the students find the poltical themes rather than me tell them what to look for next time. This will take one more day but I think that the rewards will be more profound if the see the trends unfold more infront of them. I have already created a worksheet to help facilitate this.
  
  
• What have you had to tell students so they understand why and how your role has changed?
  
  I design plenty of independent work for them so this was not a problem for them to work through at all.
  
  
• How are you now or will you be soon collecting artifacts of students work and progress?
  
  I have collected the student posters and posted them in the hallways. I will take a picture of the exhibit as soon as I remember to take my digital camera back to work. Many teachers have stopped already in the hallway to comment upon how cool they think the project is.
  
  
• What checkpoints do you have in place to monitor student progress and understanding?
  
  The finished projeect of the poster is the first check point for the first part of the project.
  
  
• Other observations, comments, challenges, and/or successes?
  
  I need to have the resource like tape and scissors ready to go. I wish there was a way to have better access to color printers but out school has only a few and the bubble jet does not print out nearly as fast as the black and white lazer. Oh well..at least the posters are in red white and blue.

During the Project B:

• How have students adjusted to their role as cognitive explorers?
  
  They are exploring but I think the most profound explorations comes as they create their own propaganda as a candidate and as a spin doctor. That is where i see it most.
  
  
• What have you done to encourage and facilitate students taking on this new role?
  
  I sit back and ask questions as I stroll by their work. I also poke a suggestion to stretch their perspective at times as well.

During the Project C:

• Are students' products matching the rubric you originally created?
  
  Yes ... the rubric was in place but what I find to be a better motivator is showing them prior student work. That seems to make them want to rise to a level of creativity that a rubric can not recreate.
  
  
• Have students headed off in an unexpected direction?
  
  While creating their original candidate photographs, some students really show their creativity. They use very witty camera angles to both show their candidate in positive and negative ways. They surprise me everytime.
  
  
• How are you facilitating the "unpredicted?
  
  Perhaps the most "unpredicted" issue has been the failure of the school's digital camera batteries on both cameras at the same time. Fortunately I was able to use my dependable camera from home to get students to double up on my camera. Hopefull this will not be an issue next tme around with this project.

Other Days:

Days for Original Candidate photography: Days 4-5
Note to self--never begin a project like this on a Monday. Student initiative and creativity were lousy and forgetable. Nearly half the groups did little to dress up for their role. I showed my displeasure to them. Yet even with the forgetfulness, some picturees still turned out just fine. Upon returning to the classroom, I showed the remainder of the groups that were going the next day, what other projects looked like in the past to remind them of the expectation in terms of attire and props. The groups that went day two did not disappoint me. They were sharp and witty with their ideas and took nearly twice as many pictures with even less dependable school cameras. One girl took photos from home and might have been the best yet of any project. She clearly took to the power of symbol in her photos.

Day 6 was spent in class. Prior to class, I uploaded the photos to a file share. Students were able to pick photos from any candidate from any class and create their print ads. WOW ... funny and creative. It is always cool to have an assignment so engaging that I don't need to be in the room for them to be working on it and really enjoying it. They show each other, ask each other questions and maybe come to me to ask me if I think it is funny or effective. They created a great batch. I was really nervous the first day of the project but they really bounced back. It will take some time to convert the files to HTML and bring to the class web page. Hopefully within a few weeks, I will have them up.

The final day I gave the class some additional time to polish their ads. We set their computers to slide show and held a gallery. Students walked around to se what each other created. Everyone did a great job. We discussed how the ads are implemented into our current political election.

Created for the Fermilab LInC program sponsored by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Education Office and Fermilab Friends for Science Education, and funded by United States Department of Energy, Illinois State Board of Education, North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium which is operated by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), and the National Science Foundation.

Authors: LInC ACT Participant
Created: September 2004
URL: /lincon/act/examples/journalreflections/candidate.shtml