Students as Designers

This week we participated in a group activity where we had to create our own in-camera-edited video that took some of the principles we’ve been learning and shared them with our other classmates. A big part of this assignment was the design process. We had to fully brainstorm our ideas and plan out all of our shots before we went and filmed our videos. This gave all of us a great feel for what it means for students to be designers. Throughout the project we were reminded regularly that “its about the process” by Dawn. This really helped me focus on the idea that process is more important than product (especially when our video didn’t turn out that great at the end). 

I actually used some of the things I learned from this class in my practice that following week. We have been working on a PBL where students are asked to design their own civilization. I changed up my plan for their product creation day and made them complete a planning document before they started work on their final product. This helped a lot of groups create something that was more cohesive and helped me to guide some of the groups along who I could tell were going in the wrong direction. After this a lot of them also grumbled that I wasn’t giving them enough time to create their products. When they complained I reminded them that I cared more about the content than the final product, as long as the spirit of what they wanted to create was there. Overall I think I got a lot out of this weeks work. Making a movie was not the most comfortable thing for me however, understanding that the focus is on process and not product is something that will be really valuable moving forward into my own practice.