#349 – Amplifying Student Voices: Sharing Holiday Stories

#249 Amplifying Student Voices: Sharing Holiday Stories

Time: 6:50

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Paul Beckermann 0:01 Welcome to Tech Talk for teachers. I’m your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:16 The topic of today’s episode is amplifying student voice: sharing holiday stories. The holidays can be a lot of things. They can be wonderful, hard, joyous, sad, anxious, restful, complicated. They can be any, all or none of those things, depending on your personal beliefs and circumstances. With a classroom of 30 students, you’re almost guaranteed to be working in a space filled with a mix of those emotions.

Some may celebrate seasonal holidays and traditions. Some may not, and still others may celebrate the same holidays in different ways. It’s not that some are right and some are wrong. They’re just different, and that’s a dynamic teachers face all the time. So how can we celebrate the holidays in a way that honors such a diverse set of feelings and experiences?

While I don’t profess to have all the answers to this question, I do believe strongly that empowering student voice is one strong and effective way to approach these types of situations. By providing ways for all students to share their personal experiences and values, we can raise our students up and give value to each of their unique perspectives. In that way, we can celebrate the holidays even when it may not be the same for all of us, and we can broaden our understanding of each other, which can help to strengthen our classroom community.

There are many ways to ensure all students have a voice to express their stories. Here are a few of them. Here is your list of tips.

Number one: discussions. This can occur online or offline. If you choose to have students share in a face-to-face environment, you may want to scaffold the experience to allow students to practice giving feedback in a supportive, nonjudgmental way.

You might practice with sentence stems or with a fishbowl modeling session in front of the room. I’ve also found it beneficial to begin in pairs or smaller groups before sharing as a full class.

If you opt for a digital discussion, you might use a discussion forum in your learning management system. Again, consider modeling respectful and supportive responses as a class before having students engage online with each other. To keep the responses manageable and the group smaller, you could pair students up with response partners within one larger discussion, or you could create several smaller discussion groups so students aren’t overwhelmed with the quantity of posts. The key is that students understand how to respond respectfully, and that all students have a chance to share.

Number two: a portfolio. By portfolio, I mean a collection of student thoughts and ideas that are gathered in a central place as one final product.

I think of it as a thought mural, or a representation of the diverse perspectives in a classroom. These could be collected in a simple word processing document where each student adds a bullet point to a list of thoughts, ideas, and perspectives.

It could be a visual representation in the form of a picture collage. Each student could add an image to the collage. You could do this digitally or offline with a paper poster board or chart paper. Digital tools Padlet are great for this as well, since they are essentially digital bulletin boards where students can post their ideas in multiple formats: images, videos, text, links, whatever they prefer.

Yet another way to do this would be to video record each student sharing their idea and then editing these into one final production. If they turn out well, you might consider showcasing them on your school news channel. If students aren’t comfortable with video, they could opt for audio recordings instead.

The power of video and audio is that these options give them a chance to speak with their actual voice.

Number three: choice projects. Another approach is to allow students to choose for themselves how they want to express their personal story. You could offer them a choice board of defined products, give them a few limited options, or you could allow students to propose their own method of sharing their story. Options can range from text to audio, to video, to multimedia, to performance and beyond. By allowing students choice, you’re giving them voice and choice, and students are almost always going to be more motivated and definitely more empowered when they have ownership in the decision-making process.

Number four: retelling the stories of others. This approach empowers students to retell the stories of others who are important to them in their lives. Typically, this would happen in the form of an interview.

Students could audio or video record an interview with a family member, a relative, a neighbor, or maybe a member of a faith community. Once they capture the story, they can bring it back to the classroom for sharing, either individually or as part of a group collective.

If students don’t have access to video or audio recording devices, such as a smartphone, they could write up questions and answers in text format. It’s good to consider ways that all students can participate. You won’t want to have a student feel excluded due to financial or situational circumstances.

Number five: Jigsaw. If you want to approach the holidays less personally, you could have students Jigsaw the idea of holiday celebrations. They could begin with a full class brainstorm of all the different holidays and traditions that they can think of. Since it’s a brainstorm, all ideas are equally welcome without judgment.

Once the list has been developed, the topics get divided up among the students. You can decide if this is random student choice or teacher assigned. Again, the more student ownership in the topic selection, the better, as it becomes much more meaningful to them.

Once students have a topic, either individually or in a group, they would then research, learn, and then share back what they’ve learned with the class. Any of the previous sharing options I discussed would work.

As you consider ways to recognize and celebrate the holiday season in your classroom, I encourage you to think about how you can honor each student’s experience, values, and beliefs. By giving each of them a voice in a structured way, you can set up the conditions for a celebration that becomes a safe learning experience for everyone. To learn more about today’s topic and explore other free resources, visit AVID Open Access.org.

And of course, be sure to join Rena Winston and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we’re joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening, take care, and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.