“Student Growth: One Frame at a Time” - L. Latronica and C. Milo

“Student Growth: One Frame at a Time”

I want to start out by saying that our Earth and Space students have been working so hard to show their knowledge and growth through online lab submissions, online tests, test retakes, EDpuzzles, and .gif brochures. However, we felt that our students creative sides were not being completely engaged.  Then one morning, after visiting the Maker Space in the media center, we found a solution!  Stop Animation! I couldn’t help but thinking back to my childhood, watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer claymation with my sisters and being completely amazed! To my surprise, Chris Milo felt that same feeling only with the 1990s original South Park... If you know anything about Milo or I this pretty much explains our teaching partnership!  Anyhow, the assignment really allowed our students to apply what they have learned and let students creative sides truly surface.

We started by asking Milo’s own 9 and 7-year-old sons to try out an application called Hue Animation to test the complexity of the assignment.  They quickly fell in love with the concept of the project.  We decided that the students would be responsible for presenting a natural resource or alternative energy (Earth and Space) or a Capstone Project (Geology) through stop animation.  Students worked in groups and used their own devices to create the animation.  There are many free apps that are available, but the app that seemed to work the best is called Stop Motion Studio. There is a pro version for $4.99, but the free version seemed to suffice.  Most students then edited their project in YouTube editor, iMovie, or WeVideo on their own devices or on the Chromebooks.  

To assess our students we created a five category rubric. The platform category judged the quality of the Stop Animation: great lighting, camera work, transitions, and etc. Most students chose to use old overhead projectors to rest their phones on to keep steady. A great way to “repurpose” this outdated technology! The content category judged how the project covers the information: How does it work? Where is it used? advantages/ disadvantages, etc.  Entertainment was obviously judged on how well their project kept their audience entertained. Lastly, the students were evaluated on teamwork.  The different skill sets and talents of each student contributed to the evolving collaboration in the groups. As the students worked through different challenges with the technology and content, different students strength and leadership became evident. Every student was able to play a vital role in their group.

We loved that the students efforts and talents were rewarded with this assignment. They genuinely seemed to buy in and enjoy their time working on them!

Below are some samples of our students work. We’d love if you’d take a look and tell us what you think!

Best of Stop Animation

Lesley Latronic
Carl Sandburg High School
Special Education Teacher

Chris Milo
Carl Sandburg High School
Science Teacher
@csgeology @csearthandspace