Energizing Project-Based Inquiry: Middle Grade Students Read

Energizing Project-Based Inquiry: Middle Grade Students Read, Write, and Create Videos

Hiller A. Spires Lisa Hervey North Carolina State University

Gwynn Morris Meredith College

Catherine Stelpflug Meredith College

May 2010 Manuscript under review. Energizing Project-Based Inquiry: Middle Grade Students Read, Write, and Create Videos

“Making videos. Very cool.”

~Josh, 8th grade student

Josh’s positive sentiment is representative of a growing trend among youth who embrace video as a natural mode of communication and self-expression. The seductive nature of the video medium for students and the potential for subsequent engagement in content driven curricular outcomes, when students generate their own productions, is exponential. There is a growing need for innovative instructional practices with reading and writing that are aligned with student interests and the activities they engage in outside of the classroom (Kaiser Family Foundation,

2010; Lenhart, Arafeh, Smith, & MacGill, 2008). There is also evidence that links the use of technology to improvements in curricular outcomes for learners (Kulik, 2003). In this article, we suggest that students are well-positioned to increase their reading, writing, and content area knowledge and skills through participation in project-based inquiry and video production processes that draw on their out of school interests and activities.

Middle Grade Students “Create” to Learn

Educators are familiar with the transition students go through from “learning to read and write” to “reading and writing to learn” (see Vacca & Vacca, 2010). As a result of emerging technologies prompting new avenues for teaching and learning, students are now positioned to

“create” to learn, with video being an important tool for literacy development. Connecting video production to reading and writing experiences in school taps into a student’s natural

2 predisposition for media consumption and production. The stage is set for middle grade students to create their own content as a natural mode for learning in conjunction with explicit instruction provided by teachers in how to effectively locate and synthesize web-based information

(Lawrence, McNeal, & Yildiz, 2009). There are four prevailing phenomena that have ushered in the opportunity for this type of teaching and learning enterprise: 1) increased reliance upon the

Internet as opposed to print-text as an informational source; 2) educational challenges associated with reading digital informational texts; 3) students' interest in consuming and generating content through digital video, and 4) the resurgence of project-based inquiry as an instructional learning design.

First, in conjunction with the exponential expansion of Internet content, there is also an increasing trend in usage, particularly among children and adolescents. In fact, the National

Center for Educational Statistics (2009) reports that instructional classrooms with access to the

Internet and web-based learning tools has increased from 51% in 1998 to 94% in 2005. On average 8-18 year olds spend a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes in a typical day using various media forms (e.g., movies, video games, music, audio) (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). In many cases out-of-school technology use is outpacing in-school technology use (National School

Boards Association, 2007) and in some instances with underserved populations (Spires, Lee,

Turner, & Johnson, 2008). These statistics suggest that the Internet is a prominent learning tool and that students are becoming increasingly dependent on the Web as a primary resource for information gathering in and out of school settings (Lawless & Schrader, 2008).

Second, due to the proliferation of the Web, teaching students to become strategic readers with informational text is becoming increasingly challenging for educators: on average 8-18 year olds report to reading online 57 minutes per day as opposed to reading print text 38 minutes per

3 day (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). The explosion of online information and the increasing reliance on these resources for educational purposes combine to create a shift in what it means to be literate in today’s knowledge-based society. Today’s readers must of course know how to decode, but they must also know how to effectively comprehend in complex Web reading environments. In this context, reading comprehension not only includes skills traditionally associated with processing print-text, but also includes locating information on the Web, critically evaluating that information and synthesizing information for a desired learning outcome (Leu et al., 2008; Goldman, 2004; Alexander & Fox, 2004). From research conducted with readers using print text, we know that without proper attention to informational text middle grade students remain unprepared for the comprehension demands they encounter as they progress through school (Martin & Duke, 2010). Informational text is particularly challenging because its content is usually unfamiliar and the ideas expressed often represent complex abstract logical relationships instead of the story grammar of familiar events represented by most narrative texts. Students’ challenges with informational texts sometimes can be attributed to inadequate word recognition, but more likely they are a function of problems specifically related to comprehension, i.e., a passive approach to the reading task, limited background knowledge, or poor metacognition. Informational texts have long presented challenges for readers as they acquire learning to read skills. Additionally, contemporary readers must expand their understanding of print text to reflect the characteristics of digital text, which are nonlinear, multimodal, highly visual, interactive, and possess unclear authority and authorship (Dalton &

Proctor, 2008).

Although there is a well-established body of research that outlines the cognitive processes involved when a good reader successfully comprehends informational print text, full models for

4 web-based comprehension are still evolving. As pioneers in this area, Don Leu and his colleagues indicate that offline and online comprehension are non-isomorphic (Coiro & Dobler,

2007; Leu et al., 2008); in fact, a good print reader may not be a proficient online reader and vice versa. Lawless, Schrader & Mayall (2007) found that when students were given a prereading activity designed to increase their prior knowledge of genetics content before they synthesized information from the Web, they demonstrated signiﬁcantly higher learning outcome scores than students in the control group. Finally, when students are required to comprehend information from the Web in classrooms, teachers are frequently unable to provide appropriate instructional scaffolding that is needed for students to be successful (Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2003). Taken together these findings suggest that supporting students to become strategic online readers is a complex pedagogical task but one that is increasingly important for students.

Third, digital capture and editing video tools have evolved from costly and complicated to inexpensive and user-friendly hardware and software for use in both teaching and learning in the classroom. As a result, students, as young as six, can film, edit and generate their own content related videos that provide visual and audio representations to articulate tacit information and new knowledge (Kearney & Schuck, 2005; Sweeder, 2007). An important advantage of digital video is the motivational effect the use of digital has on students (Parker, 2002; Reid,

Burn & Parker, 2002). Specifically, creating digital video in the classroom merges most students’ out-of-school interests and capacities since many students already successfully use video to create a range of sophisticated and powerful media products outside of school. For students, using digital video is far more familiar and culturally accepted in their everyday life than is usually found in typical classrooms.

5 According to Shewbridge & Berge (2004) a transformative space can be found in content curriculum for the use of digital video production as a way to support and enhance student media literacy, active learning, and project-based inquiry. Digital video projects allow students to experience “a new way of demonstrating their knowledge" (Coleman, Neuhauser, & Vander

Zwaag, 2004, p. 4727). Important 21st century skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, and research skills, can be facilitated through digital video creation rather than print modalities alone.

Students, when engaged in video generation projects, may have unique opportunities for interaction with specific content as well as the demonstration of their creative interpretation of that subject matter. These interactions and interpretations take the forms of reading for content, script writing, media manipulation, and production editing. Thus, student generated video can promote assimilation and accurate interpretation of content related concepts. The range of learning styles digital video creation can accommodate may be another reason why so many students show enthusiasm for digital video work (Reid, Burn & Parker, 2002). Student generated video may provide an occasion for diverse students to approach and respond to a topic, create, and showcase their newly gained knowledge in a manner that demonstrates their unique point of view on a topic of high interest.

The inherent draw of digital content is clearly illustrated through YouTube, which has revolutionized the Internet since 2005 when it was first founded. YouTube has grown in only a few short years to become one of the most popular site on the Web. A year after its creation,

YouTube was serving 2.5 billion videos a month (Reuters, 2006); at the end of 2006, it was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion (Reuters, 2006) and in January 2008, almost 79 million viewers watched more than three billion user-posted videos on YouTube (Yen, 2008).

6 Fourth, project-based inquiry has had a resurgence as an important instructional learning design that can readily incorporate new media. Project-based inquiry has its roots in problem- based learning (Buck Institute, 2009; Boss & Krauss, 2007), building on a strong orientation on real-world problems. The inquiry approach readily allows a rich set of technology tools and resources to be put into play as students explore and create new knowledge about a compelling issue. The content generated from project-based inquiry activities can be enhanced with Internet resources enabling a wide range of multimedia texts. Internet access also widens the communicative scope of project-based inquiry, allowing learners to share the results of their work with extended and distant audiences while gathering feedback and potential inspiration from others' work.

The aim of the project-based inquiry approach is to provide the opportunity for students to engage in what Newmann, Bryck, and Nagaoka (2001) describe as authentic intellectual work. They describe the distinctive characteristics of authentic intellectual work as “construction of knowledge through disciplined inquiry in order to produce products that have value beyond school” (p. 14). Likewise, elements of project-based inquiry possess what John Dewey referred to as productive inquiry, which is "that aspect of any activity where we are deliberately (although not always consciously) seeking what we need in order to do what we want to do” (Cook and Brown, 2005, p. 62). Through a project based inquiry process, our aims are to engage students in intellectual work that has depth, duration, and complexity, and to challenge and motivate students toward knowledge creation. Intellectual development is primarily about learning to use a specific culture's semiotic resources within purposeful activities with others in ways that both conform to cultural expectations and express one's unique perspective. Obviously, reading and writing are central to

7 a student’s intellectual development; these processes are augmented through project-based inquiry as students use a variety of online tools as well as digital video to create products of learning.

Taking these four prevailing phenomena into consideration and in an effort to provide an instructional context for students to “create” to learn we created, in collaboration with middle grades teachers, a dynamic, engaging approach to learning for middle grades students that we call—CINÉMA VERITÉEN.

CINÉMA VERITÉEN A Project Based Inquiry Approach to Learning

CINÉMA VERITÉEN is a project-based inquiry process that uses students growing interest in grassroots video and marries that interest with educational goals that are aligned with state and national curricular standards. It takes advantage of what Eisner (1998) calls “visual learning”—a vital means of making sense of the world, where images often foreshadow language or even toggle back and forth between language as the learner grapples with meaning. CINÉMA

VERITÉEN is based on the concept of cinéma vérité, a film making process that was introduced in the 1950s that elevated content over production. In many ways, the low-budget, low-fi technique of cinéma vérité is a precursor to today’s YouTube aesthetic. As discussed earlier, video sharing sites such as YouTube have prompted a surge in video consumption and production of content. The Horizon Report (2007) asserts, however, that there is skills gap between understanding how to use tools for media creation and how to create meaningful content in connection with school learning outcomes. CINÉMA VERITÉEN attempts to bridge that gap by helping teachers and students connect tools with challenging, meaningful content. In fact, we think that complex thinking and the YouTube aesthetic don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

8 We engaged a group of eighth grade students from a partner middle school in CINÉMA

VERITÉEN, where through a project-based inquiry process they collaborated to create a 5- minute video as a final product of learning. CINÉMA VERITÉEN included the following 5- phase process: ask a compelling question, gather and analyze information, creatively synthesize information, critically evaluate and revise, and publish and share. (See Figure 1). These phases provided a structure for students to move through the creation process as well as a structure for the teacher to facilitate mini-lessons that scaffolded students with the necessary information and skills to complete the process.

Ask a Compelling Question

In collaborative dyads, students asked a compelling question, one that they were inherently curious about and also aligned with the standard course of study. For example –What impact does global warming have on our planet and what can we do about it? What challenges has the Internet created for American youth? How did problems associated with the electoral college impact recent presidential elections? How can dance be compared to a sport? Teachers guided students to a variety of types of questions, ranging from direct informational questions to open-ended questions, to ill-structured problems to solve. We intentionally grouped students in dyads to encourage collaboration. To support their inquiry process, each dyad received a

CINÉMA VERITÉEN toolkit that was comprised of a Flip camera, gorilla pod, flashdrive, and headphones. See Figure 2.

Gather and Analyze Information

Based on their question, students began gathering and analyzing information. Students used a wiki as a collaborative writing space to collect information and begin making decisions about the digital story they wanted to tell in order to answer their question. We provided

9 scaffolded instruction in how to strategically search for information on the Web and evaluate its accuracy and relevancy based on the work of Leu et al., (2008). This involved direct modeling of the use of Boolean search techniques, differentiating between domain names (.com vs. .org), and querying cites for accuracy and transparency. We used the Teaching Internet Comprehension to

Adolescents (TICA) checklist to ensure that students had the necessary prerequisite web search skills (Leu et al., 2008). As they began to gather information to answer their question, students selected pertinent images using Flickr and Google Images. Students used Flip cameras for creating short video clips which ultimately contributed to the development and progression of their production. In addition to Web searches, each student chose a print text to read that was related to their subject and found at least one outside expert who could provide information. For example, a student dyad that was focusing on global warming, chose to read An Inconvenient

Truth and chose an expert from the community who was an environmental specialist to serve as a quality check for content.

Creatively Synthesize Information

In order to arrive at a creative synthesis, students engaged in an iterative design and development process that resulted in representing their research results in a new and original way. The process required them to demonstrate complex thinking with their content by integrating information across multiple texts (i.e., print, web-based, and video), drawing inferences, summarizing, and making novel connections for their video product. Starting with a storyboard, which included a written script paired with video and/or images, students strived for high intellectual, aesthetic, and technical quality outcomes. They gathered necessary music, narration, video, and images as well as complied with copyright and fair use laws.

We supported students to understand the difference between simply taking video footage

10 and designing and making a video production. Taking video footage requires being able to use a camera; whereas, creating a video production requires a range of skills including critical analysis about audience, advance planning of different scenes, script writing, deliberate choices about content, and considerations about copyright. The students used either Movie Maker or iMovie software, based on their preference, to create a 5-minute video that presented a unique answer to their compelling question.

Critically Evaluate and Revise

In addition to ongoing teacher scaffolding and to ensure broad-based and high-level feedback for their video products, students engaged in a three-level evaluation process: self- evaluation, peer evaluation, and outside expert evaluation. Evaluations were based on the following rubric elements: 1) Intellectual Quality, which included clear purpose, synthesis and construction of ideas, appropriate curriculum connections, clear beginning and ending, and sources cited appropriately; and 2) Aesthetic and Technical Quality, which included camera techniques, editing/transitions, audio (music and dialogue), and creativity/originality. See Figure

3. Using multiple sources of feedback based on the evaluation rubric, students revised their video production accordingly. Assessment in a digital context allowed us to use alternative approaches to measure student learning over time, including the steps taken toward mastering a subject or skill within a content area. This multi-faceted, formative approach gave us more information and insight into how students learn than a summative test, which is a snapshot in time.

Publish, Share, and Act

As a culminating activity, students published and shared their videos in the Video Studio

Showcase with class members as well as the larger educational community through the Web. In

11 creating a video of their inquiry-learning product and sharing it on the Web, students were afforded the enriched opportunity of engaging in intellectual discourse around their new learning that extended beyond school. Specific outlets for publishing student-generated content are a wikis (www.wikispaces.com) or video sharing sites such Teacher Tube

(http://www.teachertube.com). Both of these options afford the teacher the opportunity to maintain the privacy of student content for viewing by teacher-approved audiences (i.e., students, parents, friends), and are user-friendly. Students enjoy sharing their creative productions with family members and friends in addition to classmates in school; sharing work with outside audiences has both cognitive and motivational benefits and supports students in their process of seeing themselves as writers, readers, and creators who make contributions beyond school.

Additionally, a goal of project-based inquiry is that students not only learn and create new knowledge about a compelling question, but they are emboldened to act with a sense of civic duty.

Pedagogical Complexities and Challenges

As exciting as this type of project-based inquiry process is for teachers and students alike, it is not without its pedagogical complexities and challenges. We discuss three challenges that we encountered that teachers may want to consider as they implement CINÉMA VERITÉEN.

The first challenge dealt with striking a balance between student creativity and appropriateness of content and style. For example, we were intentional about supporting students to be creative with their synthesis of images and video. In this process, however, students at times made choices about content that were inappropriate by our standards. For example, in the global warming video, the student chose images of women’s underclothing to highlight the gradual increase of the earth’s temperature over time. On the one hand, the visual was clever and clearly

12 made the student’s point; on the other hand, the visual was disarming and perhaps not appropriate for the school environment. In the same way that teachers need to set guidelines and standards for student generated writing, teachers must be proactive in establishing expectations for appropriate images and content during video production. Teachers may need to consider how to incorporate more modeling on how to make appropriate judgments about content based on a targeted audience.

A second challenge dealt with providing the appropriate level of scaffolding, which is highly valued in the CINÉMA VERITÉEN process. One way to present key information is to introduce it when the students require it as they are performing a certain task (Kester, Kirschner,

& Van Merriënboer, 2004). This just-in-time presentation of information can be supportive and procedural, thus helping students monitor their own thinking, gain new knowledge, and revise existing schema with the aid of cognitive scaffolds. During the project, differentiated levels of student needs required the teachers simultaneously to scaffold students at both ends of the technology capacity spectrum. For example, some students struggled with file organization (i.e.,

Powerpoint slides, images, and video clips); whereas, other students needed support with the more complex task of video editing. Likewise, students needed varying levels of scaffolding in terms of creating a synthesis of the information based on their research process. Some students struggled with going beyond the literal text and information they encountered in order to construct new knowledge within their inquiry process. As a result, in order to complete the project, several students had to spend extra time working with teachers and external support people after school.

Students also provided scaffolding for each other. For example, when student dyads were working together on their research and video product, they possessed different kinds of

13 knowledge and were able to engage in interactions that allowed them to pool their intellectual resources to complete the process. This type of collaborative learning required the negotiation and coordination of students’ varying skills and capacities and presumed at least some amount of shared understanding, which came from the daily mini-lessons. Some students were leaders in the video creation process and were able to assist their peers with locating information and images on the Internet, file management, and video editing processes. In fact, Salomon (1993) asserts that individual and distributed cognitions can be viewed as separate phenomena that exist in an interdependent dynamic interaction. For example, students working together on CINÉMA

VERITÉEN possess different kinds of knowledge and so engage in interactions that allow them to pool their intellectual resources to accomplish a learning goal. Collaborative learning requires the negotiation and coordination of group members’ diverse perspectives and presumes at least some amount of shared understanding. Expertise was distributed across students, the teacher, outside experts, and online resources.

The third challenge centered on our choice of video editing tools. After we implemented the project, we realized that there was merit in expanding the tools from iMovie and Movie

Maker to include new Web 2.0 tools such as Jaycut and Photostory. Teachers can consider providing students with options in how they create their final product, which ultimately can increase student engagement and creativity. See Table 1 for an overview of tools and their special features that can be factored in as students are making their decisions about how best to represent their creative synthesis in a visual mode. Obviously there are pros and cons to each tool based on the teacher’s instructional goal, students’ capacities, and time constraints.

Conclusion

14 Students arrive at school with an existing knowledge and experience of digital media. Yet, the use of technology they experience in schools often bears little relevance to the ways in which they are communicating and discovering information outside of school. This disconnect is creating what David Buckingham (2009) refers to as the new digital divide. CINÉMA

VERITÉEN, with its emphasis on project-based inquiry and using reading, writing, and video production, is one approach to engaging students in the use of their desired media and at the same time promoting intellectual development. Teachers are learning how to embed current technologies into their curriculum, build and extend learner competency and focus of use, and implement models of learning that mediate the impact of technology on content related outcomes. As Ito (2009) succinctly states, “We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Young people today expect to be able to appropriate and circulate media for their own self-expression.”

As teachers who value the evolving nature of reading and writing in contemporary society, we are eager to continue finding ways to help students create meaning with their world by making videos, which as Josh reminds us is “very cool.”

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20 Figure 1. Cinéma Veritéen--A Project Based Inquiry Approach to Learning

21 Figure 2. Cinéma Veritéen Kits.

22 4 3 2 1

Intellectual Quality

Clear Purpose Establishes a Establishes a There are a few It is difficult to purpose early on purpose early on lapses in focus, but figure out the and maintains a and maintains the purpose is fairly purpose of the clear focus focus for most of clear. presentation. throughout. the presentation.

Synthesis and Sequential Sequential Sequential Sequential Construction of Ideas composition; composition; composition; composition; succinct; images succinct; images succinct; images are images are create an create an controlled/logical acceptable. atmosphere atmosphere and/or tone, and and/or tone. may communicate symbolism and/or metaphors.

Curriculum Clear and Clear connections Clear connections to No clear Connections compelling to issues of local issues of local connections to connections to activism (social activism (social issues of local issues of local studies) and studies) or activism (social activism (social appropriate appropriate language studies) and studies) and language use for use for a general inappropriate appropriate a general audience (language language use for a language use for a audience arts). general audience general audience (language arts). (language arts). (language arts).

Clear Beginning and Clear and Clear start and Clear start or end. No clear start or Ending interesting start end. end. and end.

Sources Cited Source Source Source information Very little or no Appropriately information information collected for graphics, source collected for all collected for all facts and quotes, but information was graphics, facts and graphics, facts not documented in collected. quotes. All and quotes. Most MLA format. documented in documented in MLA format. MLA format.

Aesthetic and Technical Quality

Image quality Video and images Video and images Some video and Video and images are compelling are of high images are of high are not of high and of high quality. Images quality. Some images quality. Images do quality. Images clearly support support content. not support clearly support content. content. content.

23 Editing/Transitions Engaging rhythm; Engaging rhythm; Some rhythm; limited Mechanical appropriate some appropriate transitions; lapses in rhythm; limited transitions, transitions; vitality. vitality. enhanced vitality evidence of vitality.

Audio (Music and Consistency in Consistency in Some consistency in Breaking Dialogue) presentation; presentation; presentation; lapses consistency; clearly articulated clear narration; in clarity of narration; monotone style of narration; Music Music stirs an Music is evident. presentation; stirs a rich emotional Inappropriate emotional response. choice of music. response.

Creativity/Originality Product shows a Product shows Uses other people's Uses other large amount of some original ideas (giving them people's ideas, but original thought. thought. Work credit), but there is does not give Ideas are creative shows new ideas little evidence of them credit. and inventive and insights. original thinking.

Figure 3. Video product assessment rubric.

(RUBRIC ELEMENTS CO-CONSTRUCTED BY STUDENTS AND TEACHERS, LEVEL DESCRIPTIONS ADAPTED FROM

HTTP://RUBISTAR.4TEACHERS.ORG)

24 Table 1

Overview of affordances provided by various video creation and editing tools.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor are needed to see this picture.