Digital Storytelling for Impact
Two grade seven teachers at the International School of Bangkok used the power of collaboration to redesign a seventh grade unit about migration, and they couldn’t be happier with the results.
The teachers, Matt Piercy and Sabina Vogt, are experienced international educators and exemplary collaborators. They love working together and have had a lot of success combining their strengths and experiences to craft learning experiences for their students. When they partnered with Aaron and Scott from Inspire Citizens, that spirit of collaboration grew in exponential ways and the outcomes have exceeded expectations.
“We came into this unit on migration with a strong foundation and then Aaron and Scott threw us an abundance of ideas. When we would meet with them, their suggestions were from angles we couldn’t see, and that changed everything,” says Matt.
At the beginning of the year, Matt and Sabina wanted to slow down the pace of learning for their students, and they cut out one unit from the curriculum to facilitate deeper learning in other units. This meant, in the migration unit, there was more time to work through a planning and action cycle so the students could engage in empathy interviews and create engaging digital storytelling products.
“With this unit, we focused on the interview process. We brought in parents and administrators for interviews and we allowed ample time for students to develop interview questions and get lots of peer feedback (on things like question design and conducting the interviews),” Matt continues. "After evaluating what was learned through the interview process, many students decided to do follow up interviews in effort to learn even more about the person's story and migration."
Most students chose a family member, a family friend or community member to interview about a migration experience. They recorded the interviews and then learned how to create a digital story they could share with their interviewee and with the ISB community.
“The kids were invested in creating something really sound,” says Sabina. “There was so much curiosity through this learning process, which was amazing.”
Above: A video made by grade 7 student Kanan about his mother’s migration from India to the United States.
The students were coached about how to tell a story with a solid beginning (hook), middle and end that connected to the learning objectives for the migration unit. Some key questions that surfaced throughout the unit included questions such as:
why do people migrate?
what was the process of migration like?
what were the difficulties of migration?
how were individuals impacted by new cultures in their migration experience?
Students used iMovie to produce their digital stories, and some students were experts in this already while others were beginners. Student mentors in each class helped peers who were developing technical skills, and everyone learned together. Matt and Sabina organized tutorials and brought in the tech team to help everyone learn more about iMovie, and they, too, learned new things about video production and were excited to become co-learners with their students.
“Towards the end of the process, we invited adults to sit with kids and offer them feedback before publishing the videos. The face-to-face time with other adults in the community was excellent in terms of getting to know other adults they see all the time,” reflects Matt.
When the videos were complete, they were published on Youtube and links were shared with parents and interviewees. In class, all of the videos were celebrated and students gave each other positive feedback and voted for the “best in class” stories.
Above: A video by grade 7 student Mira about her father’s migration from Vietnam to the United States.
“Next year I would love to see a film festival component at the end,” says Sabina. “It’s been great to see students build confidence in sharing their work with an outside audience.”
Both Matt and Sabina feel that the redesign of this unit (to include empathy interviews and digital storytelling) has created maximum engagement for students.
“Almost every student was hyper vigilant about their level of engagement this year,” says Matt. “There was a high level of buy-in. I am proud of our culture of feedback and the message that we learn together.”
On a personal note, Sabina says the films helped her see students in new ways.
“I got a glimpse into their world. A lot of students chose family members or close friends to interview and, more than before, it opened up a relationship of understanding about who the kids are. Also, students learned things they didn’t know about their families. On student said ‘I can’t believe this story about my grandfather,’” Sabina reflects.
After the films were completed and shared in class, two guest speakers met with the students as a capstone experience about migration. One guest zoomed in from Iraq (where she works with UNICEF) and a parent came in for a second face-to-face interview and presented her experiences as an anthropologist, author, and expert on the Indian Partition.All of these stories became important building blocks for students to think about social justice and issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. When Matt and Sabina began working with Aaron on this unit, these were important issues they wanted to bring to the table so students could begin to understand others’ stories and perspectives with an inclusive sense of listening and learning.
“The quality of the questions asked during those presentations was not at a typical middle school level,” says Matt. “The work we did throughout the unit around interview questions, along with the student engagement throughout, improved the students’ skills so much.”
The digital stories are also being shared internally at ISB through a “Good Morning Middle School” newsletter that goes out to middle school students every morning, and they will also play on a loop on a digital display in the school library. Some will be shared through the channels of Inspire Citizens, as well.
“This experience makes me really think about what mediums are we using for teaching and learning that are tailored to kids’ interests,” says Matt. “I’m wondering how we can continue to shake up what we do, to offer more choice to students and even bring them into the design of their learning experiences.”
Below: A video by grade 7 student Pammy about Mrs. Piercy’s migration from Equador to several countries around the globe.