Where I'm From Reflection

When it comes to the digital story “Where I’m From” project, many aspects of culturally responsive teaching were evident. For many students in West Virginia, the so-called “cultural deficit” of living in West Virginia is all they hear about, and they are unable to take pride in their home. This project allows students a chance to really connect with where they are from, as well as share their story with others. I found myself falling back in love with my home state, and really taking a new-found sense of pride in where I come from and wanting to show the cultural capital I feel with the world. I was also able to get to know my peers on another level through watching their videos, which allowed me to feel more connected to them and as though our classroom was becoming a community.

Creating digital stories also allows students a new opportunity to create their own learning, as it is an open ended assignment that allows students to work with more non-traditional ways of completing assignments. Students can step away from the traditional pencil and paper, and can build their 21st century skills to learn in some unique ways. With the assignment being open ended, we were able to take the reins in our learning and creation of the projects, and I really enjoyed that. It gave me a chance to get excited about a project, and take pride in my work for the first time in a long time.

Digital stories also reach to students on many different levels with many different learning styles. With the various aspects of text, pictures, music, and video being put together in this assignment, students of all learning styles can be reached. Students can also bring their prior knowledge and/or outside knowledge to the project to assist in the development. I was able to bring in my love of photography and editing, as well as my interest and passions, to create a video that contained many different components able to reach my various learning styles.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment. I was able to learn about myself, take pride in myself and where I’m from, and then share that pride with others. My family even enjoyed this project, because it was something that I took pride in and wanted to share. I even made them cry! From my experience, I can see that this is something I want to institute in my future classroom with my students. Not only is this a good alternative to typical assignments, this will allow me to get to know my students, their families, their interests and beliefs, where they are from, any funds of knowledge they are bringing with them, and so on. I recommend that all teachers do something similar to this, because if the students get as excited as I did, this assignment will become more than a project – it will become an adventure.