“For example, I assign an oral history project where students interview an older family member, typically a grandparent or someone of their grandparents’ generation. This assignment helps my students to develop historical empathy, understand how historical events shaped their own family’s personal history, and often deepen relationships between themselves and their elders.” pg. 711
This type of assignment is really good to get students invested in history and helps them to emphathize with situations in the past because it puts emotional weight in it. It also helps the students to see why we study history and to realize that everyone lives through some type of history wether they feel like it’s “big” history or not. It also states that the assignment helps them to see how we shape history and how history shapes us. This is because each account of history will be slightly different because each person views it differently and history shapes our views and us as people.
“I created a discussion forum within our online learning management system where students could post “ads” to connect with their classmates. One forum thread allowed students seeking groups to promote themselves and their skills. Another allowed groups seeking additional partners to voice their needs. Students took advantage of the forums and promoted their candidacies in all sorts of ways. Some mentioned their computer skills and their ability to handle the technical side of the project. History majors discussed their ability to conduct historical research. Others highlighted their writing skills. One student even claimed that she “understood the importance of snacks & made dope dip.”” pg. 713
This quote shows a very unique way to facilitate students to interact with others they may not know/typically interact with and a super interesting way to pick groups. Essentially the students are “selling” their skills to each other by highlighting what they would bring to a group and each person can look through and see who they think would be the best fit for them or their groups. I really like the idea of using ads to create groups because it helps to push students to not work with the same people they always do. As well as it helps them get to know one another a little more. I also think it is a good practice because for students to create an ad they must first think of what is their strongest assets and what can they bring to a team, this helps to build them and their confidence up and can also be used to push them to actually be a productive member of the group as they would want to strive to live up to that.
“Scholars have demonstrated that digital storytelling can be used to help students with special needs or disabilities develop skills beyond the learning outcomes set for the class. For example, Tharrenos Bratitsus and Petros Ziannas discovered that the process of digital storytelling can help children with special needs, especially those on the autism spectrum, to develop empathy and social skills. Although focused on younger children, their findings applied equally to situations in my own classrooms where students who self-reported as being on the autism spectrum thrived while creating their stories.” pg. 725
This quote shows that not only is digital storytelling beneficial for the students academically and good for the teacher to be able to give detailed feedback but it is very accessible for students with disabilities. It allows for many adaptations for multiple disabilities; for those on the autism spectrum it helps history feel more real and helps them to develop more empathy for the people. It also helps students with attention disorders have more control over their work and have more leeway over how they do the project. Digital storytelling would also be a great tool to use with gifted students as it would allow them to work more on the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and get really creative.
