Project-Based Learning & Identity Texts: Uniting Communities through Stories - E123

Rachel: 0:39

In this episode, we are getting an update on Katie's project with Living Hyphen.

Katie: 0:45

Yes, our book has printed and it has officially launched, so I will be sharing some updates.

Rachel: 0:50

Let's get started. This week Katie and I are back in talking a bit about a follow up to Katie's book that she's, and project that she, she's been working on with her English language learners.

Katie: 1:11

Yes, we have Finally, we have it printed. We've now done our book launch and it's been so exciting and stressful and busy and lots of fun.

Rachel: 1:22

Yeah, so if you have no idea what we're talking about, maybe we'll do a little bit of a recap on what the actual project is and what what Katie's been working on. You can also go back to episode one 19 at edu gals.com/one 19, and you can listen to that episode there to get the full scoop.

Katie: 1:40

So as a bit of a recap, what we did this year is uh, my colleagues and I at our N R ESL program, we decided that we wanted to approach ESL differently. We wanted to get them thinking more about how do be immersed in language and use it and give them a project that that kind of helps. I guess fast track that learning or immerse them in that experience. And so we went with creating a book that is all about their settlement and migration journey and challenges in learning a new language and a new place. So we brought in the living hyphen and they did a writing workshop with our students where we got, they got them thinking about, you know, what they would wanna write about what they enjoy, and also embracing their, their additional languages because they have. Some of my students speak like four or five languages, and so we ended up doing dual language writing pieces, so English and a language of their choice, all about those topics. And so from there we actually had all of the students in our program divided into teams. So we had an event planning team that would actually plan the details for all of the different events that we have run or are running. We have graphic design team that actually designed, like, came up with what the book is going to look like, the, the fonts, the graphics, the images the cover art for the actual book and all of those kind of details along with like posters to. Advertise, et cetera. We had a publicity team that has been handling the communication with other students in classes. They've reached out to local media and are trying to kind of get the message out there. We have a presentation team and they're literally doing the presentations for the other groups that come in to see us and, and hear about our project. A podcasting team. Where they are asking questions to the students who have written stories and creating like little mini podcasts that will then share out over the PA system in the morning. We have a sales team, which actually divides up, you know, they're doing bake sales, they're doing book sales, they're doing lots of different things to raise money. So they are organizing all of that and making sure that we have people covering the booth and stuff at lunches and whatnot. And then we also have a production manager team who are kind of like the group leaders for all of the other groups, and they kind of go around and keep people on task and, and support as needed.

Rachel: 4:04

That sounds so cool and what, what I'm really impressed with, so Katie sent me this newspaper article about the book launch that has already happened, and I, I think my initial reaction was, oh my goodness, it's already published. How did you do that? How did you do that so quickly? Like, so talk about your timeframe a little bit.

Katie: 4:25

My timeframe, let me tell you. So, so this was actually a really good lesson for me because I'm such a, a flexible Lucy goosey type person where I'm like, we need more time. Let's take more time. This project, Was not something we could do that for. And so one of my colleagues that I work with, she's fabulous and she's also a drama teacher, so she's used to putting on productions and planning these types of things. And so she had us true to our schedule and it was fabulous. Um, So what we ended up doing is in order to make this happen two to three days a week, we would actually do full group and we'd separate into our teams and we'd just focus on. Each team's, I guess, work that they had to do and they had due dates that they had to follow. So it was a guide so that when we were meeting up, they knew what they had to accomplish and how much they had to get done. And so we just, like, we had to stick with the schedule and, and the students knew that and they saw, you know, if we wanna get this book printed in time, cuz printing takes time, we have to make sure that we're on top of this.

Rachel: 5:28

Okay, So, when, when did you start, when did printing happen? When did your book launch happen?

Katie: 5:34

Okay. So the writing workshop, which really kind of spurred on the work was March 1st. That's right. The book launch was April 12th. So we had from March 1st after this initial um, writing workshop to kind of. Get going. And so we divided into the teams prior to the writing workshop knowing that that's what we were going to be doing. And we explained the roles, got them kind of talking to each other and brainstorming. But then from there it was just kind of a rush to the finish line because we had to get it printed, I think 12 days prior to the launch. So we had to send it by around April 1st. So we really had a month to edit and get it all laid out and designed in, into a book.

Rachel: 6:19

Yeah, that's, that's gotta be the world's fastest book, I'm sure.

Katie: 6:23

Yeah, no kidding it, it certainly felt fast,

Rachel: 6:29

Yeah, well you had a a week, week of March break in there too, so Really You had three weeks? Yeah.

Katie: 6:35

Which is crazy, but, but it was worth it. And, and the kids see it and, and because we have so many hands, like so many people, cuz there are I think around 50 students in our program. And so we had teams of people that were looking over and we just edited for understanding, like, do we understand the message? So it's not like we had to be nitpicky with grammar and all of the rest because we want it to be a reflection of who they are now. Versus some completely edited version of who they are. Like it's, it's, there's a lot of value in the language that they've used and, and how they've expressed themselves, and we didn't wanna change But yeah, so it was a, it was a team effort and it was certainly an effort. I say that in the best way possible. It was just super stressful.

Rachel: 7:20

Mm-hmm. So talk, talk to us a little bit about your book launch. Like how did that go? What, what did that look like?

Katie: 7:27

So, um, the students had reached out to classes to see if they wanted to visit. They reached out to some teachers or members of the board that we thought would be appropriate, so like from our welcome center, et cetera. And then, uh, they also reached out to the local media to see if they would have an interest in coming by. But it, it's funny because we booked out, or they booked out the library and the librarian said to me, so how many classes are coming? And I was like, I wasn't part of that email chain. It was all the students. So I don't know. And she's like, what? You had the students do that? And I was like, yes, this is their project. We really were hands off, like they chose the classes to invite. They chose the decorations that they wanted in the library, and they went out and picked up all of the decorations, and then they came in and decorated it all. Each kind of person took on something they wanted to bring for the launch. So we had like coffee and juice and, some snacks for the, for the book launch as well. And then, We had all of the people in there. We had the library nicely decorated. And then the presentation team had created, well, a presentation to kinda share the process that we've been doing to create the book and also some of the different entries. And so I think there were about four or five students who read aloud their entry in the book. And yeah, it was a really neat process. It was really neat. It was fun.

Rachel: 8:43

And your students were successful in getting the media out because I saw the article,

Katie: 8:48

That they were, yes,

Rachel: 8:50

is amazing. Yeah.

Katie: 8:52

Yeah, so it was really neat to have the local paper come out and write an article about them and, and showcase them because, you know, a lot of times they don't always feel like they are necessarily a valued part of school programs and, and community. And I think that this really. It empowered them in so many ways and it made them realize that um, they can do things. And I think that's one of my favorite parts of this project is the high expectations we had for them. and they blew it outta the park. Like it was awesome. And it was so, it, it's so neat to see, cuz I doubted whether we could do this. I was like, this is intense. I'm not sure if this is gonna work, but let's give it a try. And we just never gave up and it was fabulous and it turned out so well.

Rachel: 9:34

It really is. It, it's, it's very eye-opening when you do set those expectations high for students and, you know, maybe you have some doubts about it, but usually students will, will raise themselves up to your bar. So while it's, it's a little scary, it's so worth it.

Katie: 9:53

Yeah. No, totally. I've really enjoyed the process. It's been great. And it's neat to actually hold this book in my hand, and I know who used like digital art to create it and the cover art and I, I know the students who actually spent so many hours formatting the pages and inserting all the page numbers and doing all of these things that were a little tough and that they hadn't expected to be able to do or have to do in an ESL classroom. So it was neat.

Rachel: 10:21

That actually brings me to my next question. So that was a really nice segue, but what tools did your students end up using, especially your digital design design? Students because I'm, I'm really curious, we had that conversation before in, in the last episode about this, about, you know, what are we, what are you gonna do if your students are saying, oh, I wanna use this tool, but we're not allowed to use it with students. So I'm really curious what tools you ended up going with.

Katie: 10:47

We did go with Canva, but we created student tab e, ESL student accounts, To be able to do it so that it wasn't actually using their data, it was using just a made up account that is not actually attached to anybody. And so that was based on one of the educators accounts cuz educators get the free account and the premium. And so um, we just attached students to that uh, teacher

Rachel: 11:13

Nice.

Katie: 11:13

cuz that's that's what they decided they wanted. And somebody already had an account and I was like, you can't use your own account, so let's not use your own account. But if this is what you wanna do, then this is, this is how we have to do it.

Rachel: 11:25

And Ed admin was aware, I guess.

Katie: 11:27

Yeah, they know we were using it. Yeah. I mean the big thing on that tool is because of the data it collects and when you take away that data collection it's no longer doing what they don't want it to do, so to speak. And it's used by so many other clubs and groups and everything else, so,

Rachel: 11:43

I know, I totally agree with that. I think that's a really great kind of workaround to that data collection piece is just creating anonymized student accounts that, you know, you, you have the username and passwords, students can all use it to log in, and then you don't have to worry about sharing any of that other data.

Katie: 12:02

Yeah. And so that was the best workaround because it was, it was hard to find a tool otherwise, like there's not a whole lot out there that. Especially that we can necessarily use. And so, and that was a tool they were comfortable with and had used, and so we kind of went with it.

Rachel: 12:18

Yeah. No, I, I love that. I think that's uh, a really nice workaround to getting what you need to get done and also protecting student privacy.

Katie: 12:26

Yeah. So yeah, it worked out well. Mind you, one thing I noticed or we figured out, Canva doesn't have insert page number feature, and so we had to manually create text boxes and copy paste them in the, it was terrible.

Rachel: 12:44

oh, that sounds tedious.

Katie: 12:45

then as soon as we had to like flip a page cuz maybe one was sorted wrong or whatever the case may be, then you had to re-number everything.

Rachel: 12:54

Ouch.

Katie: 12:55

I helped them a little bit with that, and let me tell you, that was tedious.

Rachel: 12:59

So yeah, Canva. We need to change that.

Katie: 13:02

Get us some page numbers please.

Rachel: 13:04

So what would you say were your big wins from this project? Like, what are, what are you most proud of?

Katie: 13:10

I, I don't know if there's just one thing. I'm proud of their courage. Because it takes courage to share some of the things that they shared about themselves and their journey and their feelings and emotions about having to move. And to do that in, in two languages, especially when it's not always clear that we value all of these languages. And so to be brave enough to share their story and in their first language or chosen language and English. It's such a powerful expression, and I'm so proud of them for, for putting themselves out there.

Rachel: 13:42

Yeah. That's beautiful. It is. It would take a lot of courage.

Katie: 13:46

Yeah. And some of them aren't happy and I think that was hard. And as we were doing it, they're like, well, I don't wanna put this because you know, it's not gonna be a happy message. And I was like, Why does it have to be happy? You know, your journey is your journey and you don't have to be happy to have had to move to Canada. Nobody's saying that like there are so many reasons why you would be moving and you're a teenager to boot, so it can be hard to leave your family and friends and, and that's valid. And so some of the messages I know that um, they struggled with a little bit cause they weren't sure if they would be accepted,

Rachel: 14:17

okay, so, so you probably ran into some roadblocks and challenges too. Do you wanna, you wanna share a few of those because like with any project, this sort of size, you, you're bound to run into roadblocks and challenges.

Katie: 14:30

Yeah. And so I think one of the biggest challenges right off the bat is we have. A lot of like step one language learners are right at the beginning. And so finding a space for them where they could still participate because by the end it was super stressful and rushed and just trying to get things done. And so I think if I were to do it again, I would try to make sure I have something else that's easy for them to access and do that builds language still, but doesn't make them feel overwhelmed. And so, I think that was one challenge that I'm not sure how well we, we kind of problem solved that, but everybody was working. So, I mean, in some respects perhaps we did, but I wanna make it more accessible.

Rachel: 15:12

Yeah, that, that would be challenging cuz you do have a, a wide variety of language proficiencies for sure.

Katie: 15:19

Yeah. And we had some people who had just arrived and they're like, what do you want us to do? And I'm like, what an excellent question. Because like, it's that like, cuz I mean immigration doesn't stop, right? It's constant. And so we're constantly getting new students and so it's fitting them into a structure that's already moving. A train has already left the station, how can we get them on here? But um, no, I think it worked out well. And actually one of my brand new students ended up being in the presentation group And presented about it. And so it was fun to kind of see them embrace it and just go with it and give it a dry.

Rachel: 15:53

That is incredibly brave.

Katie: 15:55

Right. And she was, and she was so nervous and I was like, no, you got this. And she was awesome. she was just so authentically herself and it was fabulous to see.

Rachel: 16:04

Oh, that just like warms my heart.

Katie: 16:07

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel: 16:08

That's very cool. Okay, so going forward now, like you, you did talk about a couple things that you would change, but what would you, if you were gonna do this project again, say next year, or say like with a different group of students or even advice maybe that you have to our audience if they wanted to do a project like this? Like what, what, what would your advice be?

Katie: 16:30

Give yourself more time. Uh,

Rachel: 16:33

Wait, you're seeing a month is uh, a

Katie: 16:35

month is a bit tight. Yep, yep. But really let the students take the reins. It's hard to give up control as, as the teacher, but I think that it worked out so well because we did give up control. And it's key. You have to let them take responsibility for it because that's when they are going to step up and do it. Because it's theirs and it's not a teacher telling them what we want it to look like or sound like. And that was hard. It was extremely hard for me to give up control and just let them go with it. But if you're going to do something like this, you really do need to and make the roles very explicit. Make them easy to understand and see so that the students can work within those teams or how, however you wanna divide it.

Rachel: 17:19

Yeah, I, I really do like how you had all the different kind of teams to go along with the project itself, and then students were self-selecting where they wanted to spend the majority of their time on this project. So that's, that's a really sort of nice structure. It gives you, I guess, that little bit of control still while also releasing the control to your students.

Katie: 17:41

Yeah, yeah, we did divide and conquer and so we, we had groups that we would work with and kind of help guide and then embed lessons as needed. And it was fascinating. It was really neat to do. We wanna continue with like this project-based learning type theme in how we structure esl. It just, I think we're, it's gonna look different next year. I think we're gonna try to get into feeder schools and get our students teaching students.

Rachel: 18:05

that sounds fun.

Katie: 18:06

Yeah, we're, we're already reading the brainstorm phase. We're like, okay, what's next?

Rachel: 18:09

I do really love those projects with feeder schools because it, it creates a nice bridge. Like I feel like in education, elementary and secondary are usually two separate worlds that never really connect or never really overlap very, very often. And so finding those opportunities to go into feeder schools or having feeder schools come into your secondary school is just it. It's amazing. We did, uh, something like that that with our IB students this year, so all of our IB students with Science, they do what they call a Group four project. It's basically just a interdisciplinary science project that they, they work on not for very many hours. I think it's like 10 hours at most, or I don't know, I don't even think it's that many hours. But I had the opportunity this year. I got all of these different probes, vernia probes. And kits from our instructional program lead with the stipulation that they are in our secondary schools so that feeder schools can come to us and use them whenever they need to. Because with our feeder schools, like our and our elementary students, the app that you have to use with the probeware is not allowed. So they need that partnership with the secondary and with the secondary students in order to be able to use that software on their devices or on our devices basically. And so we, we kind of brainstormed a little bit and then I had the idea of, well, our IB students need to do this science project. What if we had them su selecting what are the probes they wanted to use? And then go into our feeder schools and teach. some sort of scientific inquiry with our feeder school classes, and so we made that connection. That was really cool as well. So yeah, going into the feeder schools, it's great because then you get that exposure and hopefully creates that relationship. And student C, oh, look, there's some really cool stuff they do at this secondary school. Maybe that's where I want to go to high school.

Katie: 20:15

Yeah. is key.

Rachel: 20:16

It's key, especially when there are many choices of high schools around and students might leave, say, for example, our public school system to go to the Catholic school system.

Katie: 20:27

Which is common.

Rachel: 20:28

Very common, but it's, it's just that, it's a nice connection to

Katie: 20:32

Yeah. And that's our goal. And so we're thinking that might be a next step and we'll kind of see, we'll see where it goes and what other ideas we come up with.

Rachel: 20:42

Oh, very cool.

Katie: 20:43

no, not bad, eh. I do have to say I am relieved that the book lunch is done.

Rachel: 20:50

imagine.

Katie: 20:51

it has been exhausting. But it's funny cuz my dad purchased a copy of the book and he said to me, I want the students to sign their name on their page where they

Rachel: 21:01

Oh,

Katie: 21:03

And so, Yeah, so he's like, they are now authors and I want them to sign it and get their autographs. So it was really neat. So I'm gonna tell my students on Monday and get them to all sign the book.

Rachel: 21:14

So can anyone buy the book or is it just local?

Katie: 21:17

mostly local because um, we are the deliverers, so, so if you are in the Oakville, I guess area, then um, you are welcome to and I can connect and get one to you.

Rachel: 21:29

Okay. So yeah, just reach out to Katie and hook you up.

Katie: 21:32

Yep,

Rachel: 21:32

So on that note, let's wrap up our conversation here today. So we'll include any of the links or resources we talked about here today in our show notes. You can access our show notes for this episode@edgygals.com slash 1 23. That's edu G A l s.com/ 1 23.

Katie: 21:51

And if you like what you heard today, then feel free to share it with a colleague or friend. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future content.

Rachel: 22:01

And as always, we'd love to hear from you. So if you have ideas or suggestions for future episodes uh, you can go on to our flip at edo gals.com/flipgrid and leave us a video message there. Or you can go onto our website@edgygals.com and leave us a written response.

Katie: 22:19

Thanks for listening and see you next week.