EARTH-TAKES: A SEMESTER-LONG PROJECT IN STUDENT-PRODUCED AUDIO NARRATIVES

A student in a general elective geology class asks a simple question: can I respond to this formal essay prompt in the form of a rap? This idea finds a home in an NSF-funded grant evaluating the effectiveness of Student-Produced Audio Narratives (SPAN). At a small, liberal arts college with a diverse student population, we have taken a general science elective course in geology and used SPAN assignments to provide students an opportunity to engage more deeply in a scientific topic in a manner that highlights their individual voices and skills. This semester-long SPAN project consists of carefully scaffolded tasks building the skills students need for research and for communicating this research. Assignments have included written scripts, songs, poems, interviews with professionals, expanded metaphors and the fantasy realm, all with the singular purpose of expanding their scientific understanding and sharing that understanding with their peers. At the end of the project, students reflect that they have created something that brought them an unusual sense of pride and accomplishment in a course that was not considered a priority. Student engagement with the SPAN projects has led to students going beyond the traditional research paper, refining their material to deliver a poignant three-minute message from their research, offering them a unique format to have their voices heard.

Here we will present the project outline, with scaffolded assignments, to explain how this can be accomplished with nothing more than a cellphone and free audio production software. Outcomes include examples of student audio projects and their personal project reflections. We will also discuss some key lessons learned as this project evolved over four semesters of implementation, from having students submit audio files in place of traditional submissions of topic choice, to using campus resources for students who struggle to find their way to creative expression, and through peer reviews, ultimately resulting in almost 100% submission rate. We have found students not only engaging more deeply with their own topics, but also becoming more invested in the success of their peers. In our diverse student population, this sense of community and support of each other is an unexpected, but welcome outcome. This work supported by NSF Grant No. 1708590.