Designing this course reaffirmed my belief that one of the central thing that makes studying public education so interesting is that it is constantly being “remade.” Because public education is constantly in the process of being reinvented, it means that the conflicts and tensions among various individuals and groups with different visions for public education are playing out around us all of the time. For example, I have kids in the local public schools here in Lewisburg. My son Jacob (grade 8) recently came home complaining about taking the Keystone Exams (PA’s New Standardized Tests) for several days and how stressed he was about the proposition of not passing. On its own, this interactions doesn’t mean much, and might not be of much interest to you, but if I can connect it with the material we have been learning about in this course, and put it into its context, I can now link my local experience to a national phenomenon that has significantly increased the use of standardized tests in public education. If you are observant, this course will help you to link what you see around you with the issues we discuss each week, my hope is that you will better understand your own lived experience.
If you are observant, this course will help you to link what you see around you with the issues we discuss each week…
To facilitate these kind of meaningful linkages between the course content and what is happening around us, I’ve designed a podcast assignment. Maybe some of you have experience creating podcasts or working in radio. If so, this is fantastic, and we will strive to take advantage of your expertise. If not, it is OK, I’ve built the course around the assumption that we are all neophytes when it comes to producing high quality radio segments.
Over the course of the semester, with the help of the Library & Instruction Technology staff, we will gain some radio production skills that we can put to work in making sense of the course content. More specifically, working as groups of 3-5 students, you will become a production team responsible for the creation of a captivating 6-7 minute podcast focused on an issue related to school reform. The goal is to produce, as closely as possible, the kind of high quality radio you might hear on This American Life, The Moth, or Snap Judgment or other good radio shows.
(Click the images above to go to the respective websites to hear how good this kind of radio journalism can be. Also, check out Youth Radio (https://youthradio.org/classroom/desk/student-content in Oakland, CA. )
This assignment will require a lot of work, but I have tried to break this up into digestible chunks that will be due at various times throughout the semester. If our radio segments are good enough, there is a good chance we can have them broadcast on WVBU. Here are the main steps of the project:
Part 1: Due 9/18
Part 2: Due 10/2
Part 3 Due 10/21
Part 4 Due 11/4
Part 5 Due 11/13
Part 6 Due on date of final exam.
Part 7 Due on date of final exam.
A rubric detailing how I will grade these projects is available by clicking this link: Podcast Rubrics