Retrospective Assessment
- In terms of design, the primary desire was something more than a “talking head” video in addition to being more engaging than text or audio alone. We also strongly followed a design principle of being accessible and easily digestible by non-academic audiences, or a non-educators, so a citation-laden paper was out of the question, and even our original design idea of a “tip sheet” for parents seemed inadequate for our primary goal in these regards.
As for motivation informed by educational researchers of the past, we propose that part of the anxiety surrounding parents’ lack of mathematics confidence and/or competence (for which we found strong evidence in the literature) may be rooted, ultimately, in a deficit of literacy; one operates in society as an adult and parent with the assumption (possibly false, but necessary as a defence mechanism) that one is operating as a literate member of their culture, which includes a functional mathematical ability. This, paired with an unconscious fear that one’s child may also lack this literacy facet and requisite, would naturally cause radical insecurity. In this regard, we took this to be a bigger issue than simply the concerns over children and their math grades as the research may suggest, and this was informed by our reading of DeCastell and Luke (1983) in terms of, not only academics, but also societal values and power. - In terms of assets, the sound effects and titles were taken from the catalogue of available options in iMovie, but all of the illustrations and voiceover work was one hundred percent generated by the two of us. Scott and Chris collaborated on the idea and script over the phone. Chris brought in the initial papers which supported the starting idea, Scott did a larger portion of the supporting research. Scott also did a majority of the illustrations and some of the voiceover, and Chris did a majority of the voiceover and video editing. This paper was co-written.
- While Chris had some experience with video editing, he had never attempted stop-motion or RSA style videos involving sped-up footage to match the length of the audio for the particular effect. Scott had to develop the skills of camera setup and framing, requiring multiple takes to accomplish his vision for each segment. Of note, we both also built this video project from the research forward, as opposed to setting out to do a video with a particular agenda and finding research to support pre-conceived arguments. This was new to both of us, as often in undergraduate and other studies, students may start with a thesis and select research to fit. In this case, we examined the literature, filtered with theoretical perspectives and pragmatism, and build the video guide on what we determined to be most helpful.
- The purpose of our tool was to help parents and the medium had to be equally as accessible as the message. The use of whiteboards was partly based on the format itself being a popular fad for informational videos, and on its ease of production for the two of us; no complicated animations or programming were required.
- While we did not place particular emphasis on identity representation… nor did we explicitly target any particular group for engagement, we attempted, with our limited time and resources (and talent) to not reference any particular ethnicities or genders with our illustrations, nor, in fact, did we ever represent more than one parent at a time with a child, thereby avoiding unintentional viewer interpretations of family structure or makeup. We definitely fall short in accessibility for non-English speakers or the hearing impaired – Chris intended to supply subtitles for the video but did not have time (also, to be fair, the video is a proof-of-concept and not a polished market-ready product).
- Both of us are actually somewhat surprised to have created something that we would share with our students’ families. Our final product has a sincerity, pragmatism, authenticity, and lack of agenda that neither of us expected to come out of this project. As for an “aha! moment,” we both agree that it was in the moment when we realized the conflict that existed and is created by the educational institutions and structures asking parents to be involved and the chaotic possibilities and realities of what that actually looks like at home. We realized this juxtaposition created a niche in which our tool could exist, be a viable solution, and could be produced in a simple and interesting way.
Individual Overview
The making of our RSA-style video on homework was born out of a long history of discourse between Chris and myself. Over time we have tried to reconcile the tension between educational bodies pleading for more home and parent-involvement in the learning process, only to feel like we were unintentionally contributing to the achievement gap in students, thanks in part to the varied efficacy of homework help. This project was our attempt to bring these two seemingly parallel, yet ultimately perpendicular ideas closer together in order to achieve a more equitable system regarding homework and the theory around finishing work at home.
Our tool is motivated by equity – presuming that parent engagement in the homework-assistance process, and parental competence and confidence, is correlated with socioeconomic factors, our tool, therefore, functions primarily to serve poverty-of-opportunity students, as Pestalozzi advocated (Heafford, 1967).
At first, we sought to create a digital tool that would assess parent mathematical competency, and use that data to steer toward resources that would optimize the homework process. After feedback and a re-envisioning of our goals, we realized that we ought to take a Pestalozzian approach; one that looks at the whole child and their capacities both in and outside of school, beyond the teacher-student relationship. If the school is part of the educational media ecology, then how is it not so that the student’s place of residence isn’t part of that ecological system as well? Suffice to say it may be inappropriate for a teacher to think they can shape much of how a student lives at home, but it may be just enough to suggest ways in which learning of school-related activities can be maximized.
When I view our project through the lens of McLuhan’s tetrad, I am initially struck by what our original and overt intention was in terms of enhancement: to bring straightforward pedagogy to parents in order to make the homework/help process at home more enjoyable, productive, and meaningful. In terms of retrieval, I have come to learn that not many parents actually read teacher newsletters home, for a variety of reasons, one of which is how impersonal they can be. In this way, our video was meant to bring relevant tips to parents while bringing back that personal touch through our voices and hand-drawn sketches. Ironically, while the project retrieves the personal touch of a teacher, it also obsolesces personally relevant details of each student’s homework needs, much like a phone call home would do. It potentially reverses the evolutionary shift of responsibilities from the teacher back to the parent. It also might reverse the idea that technology is meant to make our lives more efficient and convenient, yet the production of media in this way is while somewhat simple, it takes considerable time to get right and potentially takes longer to watch than it would to read a short letter containing the same information.
Ultimately, we aimed to create a tool that advocated for research-based methods of helping students learn at home, yet wanted to balance the fact that it may be perceived as teachers telling parents how to parent. There was some fear around being too “preachy”, which would render our tool and it impacts null and void, but I believe we struck the right chord, one that will ideally help our students and families in the future.