I created a quick summer curriculum for our student leaders to meta-cognitively reflect on their experiences transitioning to the University of Central Florida. The above link to a WikiSpace is the Curriculum page I created. Below is the outline for the summer project:
Setup Assignment – I run a scholarship program at the University of Central Florida, where the student in the program receives a 5-star mentoring experience. One of these mentors is a peer mentor, a student who has previously been a part of the program and currently in upper-level courses.
Even though coursework is a part of the LEARN student experience, I wanted to stretch a little further to create an assignment to integrate into the peer mentor training while the students are not on campus over the summer. My hope is that the peer mentors will create a digital story for their mentees full of their advice and a personal transition story.
Assignment Introduction – The Sway presentation here will be an introduction to digital storytelling and show the peer mentors first-hand what a project could look like. Pictures, video, sound and interactive media are all welcome in a digital transition story.
Reflection Exercise – I plan to scaffold their assignment by asking the peer mentors to reflect on their transition to UCF from their state college or high school. Engaging in a metacognitive activity will help students remember what it was like to come to a new university, socialize, and understand the academic rigors demanded of them in a STEM discipline at UCF.
Storyboarding – Next, I will ask the peer mentors to take their reflection and translate it to a story board with the tool from EducationWorld.com: https://t.co/9V2jyDYMdU
Tech Tools – After the storyboard makes sense and the peer mentors are able to give reviews of each others’ story boards, I will introduce the different technologies that could make a digital transition story possible. Below are link farms of different tools that could help a student create a digital transition story.
Rubric for Assignment – If I were grading this assignment, I would then modify Schrock’s K12 Digital Storytelling Rubric for higher education students: https://t.co/dz4WGwvcDo
The Why – I would then let the students send out their digital transition stories to their mentees before the fall semester begins as an introduction and virtual meet-n-greet for the students to feel as though the peer mentors a approachable.
The outcome of the curriculum posted above is posted below. I was given permission to post the two examples below by each student.