Overall Reflection

I wanted to say that it was such a pleasure to work for the Balfour program and to work with Amy Aiyegbusi as my partner. We were very collaborative and open to new ideas (from each other and from the kids during the program). The kids were just amazing, bright and well-behaved. I am amazed how creative they were with their t-shirt projects and the pictures. It has been such a wonderful experience both for me and Amy and I believe that those kids will continue their educational journey successfully!

Reflection 4 Day 4

Wow. What a day. Our students--every single one of them--came up with an introspective way to represent their story of migration on their T-shirt and in relation to the props they used in their picture of themselves in their T-shirts. The energy in the room today was electric--the kids were excited to finally be creating their digital representations of their shirts, one of their Balfour educators from another program came into the classroom for a while so that they could model and explain their shirts to him, and we even had about 10 minutes of time at the beginning and end of class so that they could finish what they have called "their" game of Guess Who--where they draw out a card with 3 facts about someone in the room and try to guess who the person is. They LOVE that game:) This week has been wonderful for both Derya and I, and we hope that at the end of their journey tomorrow they will take away the love and understanding they have shown for each other into all facets of their lives forever. They are great kids and deserve the best always.

Reflection 3: Day 3

Today was another great day. We started out the day letting the students interview us again, and they learned that while both Derya and I have seen negative things in the countries we have traveled, our positive experiences far outweigh any challenges we have encountered. Each time they ask us a question, someone in the class volunteers their own story about movement, whether pertaining to physical or ideological, and we all are getting to know and appreciate our unique and diverse backgrounds. We introduced two visual artists who specialize in migratory photography, showing them collections and explaining how each artists' work overlaps with the other. After that discussion, the students completed their T-shirt designs--all of their creativity is amazing! They have really taken to our group's theme of migration and have represented themselves well through their shirt designs. During the artwork period, we played more world music, and some of the students contributed their own favorites in that category as well. Tomorrow is the digital component of our artwork project, and they are already thinking about how best to represent themselves through photography and how to comprise that into a classroom representation of their work. The only challenge we faced today was the shortened time we had with them, but we all adjusted our schedules for the time we did have and honestly did not think about it too much. We completed our lesson plan for the day, each student completed their shirt, so all in all was another wonderful day with our group of Balfours:)

Group 2 Reflection: Day 2

Reflection Day 2

Today was only the second day each of us in our group has known the others, but we already feel connected to each other. We believe that is due to our desire to share our own stories of migration and identity with all our students and listening to theirs, as well. We began the day by answering questions they had for us about our life stories, and then we moved into a discussion about social movements as an ideology migration. During that portion, we taught them the 6 types of social movements including the target audience and desired outcome of each type. The discussion was interactive, as the students had many great ideas about both recent and past social movements including discussion of the short and long term success of each. We them moved into the artistic portion of the program, which is T-shirt design. Each student is designing a shirt based on either their self-identity or social issue important to them, or a combination of both. Yesterday we posted pictures of varying movements around the room to give them ideas for the shirts and to facilitate discussion, as well. We stressed the success of peaceful activism, successful social change and the importance of leadership and tolerance in all forms of migration. We gave them a small "homework" idea for tomorrow, which was to pick out one world music song for us to play during tomorrow's completion of the T-shirts. We will let you know tomorrow what they come up with:)

Day 1: Global Infusion Group Reflection 1

July 10, 2017
8:50pm

As Derya and I discussed when our students left the room today, we are pleased with their engagement with our topic of migration and movement. Our group seems to get along with each other, not only sharing a laugh with everyone about the activities we did with them, but also very helpful and respectful of each other. We have an interesting day planned for them tomorrow, as we will introduce social movements as a part of migration, and are looking forward to their ideas on the subject. All in all, it was a good day and we can't wait to share with them again tomorrow.
Amy/Derya
Group 2

Group 2 Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan:

Monday - Welcome & Intro to Course Topic (5 min)

Introduction to Facilitators (5 min)

Ice-breaker Activity--Paired House Drawing  (30 min)

Grouping them up to know each other (10 min)

Free Talk, 3 Individual Facts and Questions for Facilitators-On index cards

TED Talk (~ 10 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46wWjKTn4Ac

Discussion + Push/Pull Factors Activity (30 min)

Tuesday- Intro Activity (Interviewing the facilitators) (15 min)

Introducing Social Movements (30 min)

Making t-shirts (45 min)

End of session reminders: Personal Stories (Wednesday) & Personal Props (Thursday), Give website addresses to digital editing sites

http://www.fotor.com/

http://photoretrica.com/

Wednesday - Intro Activity (Interviewing the facilitators) (15 min)

Making t-shirts (45 min)

Sharing Personal Stories (30 min)

Thursday - Card game (5 min)

Introducing the 2 digital artists (30 min)

Omar Victor Diop (Senegal)

https://www.omarviktor.com/project-diaspora

Shadi Ghadirian (Iran)  http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/shadi_ghadirian.htm

Introduction of some digital tools (5 min)

http://photoretrica.com/

http://www.fotor.com/

Presentation Construction  (50 min)

    

Friday- Presentations/Session Close

Feedback Comments Encouraged:)

Everyone--This is what we have so far. Please feel free to comment, even challenge us on how we are going to streamline all of our info into just 4 days of 90 minutes each lol. I would love to hear all your thoughts, both positive and improvement-based. Thanks!

Before the first class, we are posting printed images of global migration and images of social movement signage at the front of the room in a collage grouping. We thought this could not only spark conversation but provide our students with inspiration for their own designs for their migration/movement T-shirts they will be making that week.

As the class begins, we plan to introduce ourselves and our goals for the week as it relates to our topic. We have two videos we are considering for our intro section. One shows the trajectory of migratory patterns for thousands of years, and this is the link:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJdT6QcSbQ0

We then plan to open the discussion in a participatory format based on the following video. We don't think we will show the actual video, as they would have already seen the first one and this one moves a little too slowly, but the ideas are key to the introduction of our topic. We thought it would be more engaging if we did an activity involving the wipe off board/chalkboard, and we could either have volunteers come up to the board to write their own ideas of what either "pushes" or "pulls" people from their original home and to another, or we could teach it by asking the class as a whole and writing it down ourselves as the discussion commences. Here is the "Push/Pull" video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF86TGM3eSE

Then we thought we would move them into a personal ice-breaker, which has two goals--to get them up and moving around after listening to us talk, and to help them get to know one another. Derya came up with an ice breaker of pairing them with a piece of construction paper and one marker, with the point of the activity being both people have to hold the marker together and find a way to draw their "dream house" without being able to verbally communicate with each other. The goal of this activity would be to show them that all people have their own ideas about home and life in general, in life our own personal ideas are impacted by the presence of others, and in the process of learning to work together we gain knowledge of another's perspective, as well. 

To end the first day, one of us is going to tell our "life bios" with regard to our own experiences as migrants. After explaining our story, the class gets a chance to interview us on whatever they would like to know about our life up to this point. We plan on either preparing a short PP of ourselves and/or bringing in a personal item or two that means something to us and our personal identity/home. 

We have more ideas for the remainder of the week, but I thought I could walk you all through them one day at a time, as setting them all out for you on here might be a little too overwhelming for one post. Below is a very rough skeleton schedule so far. 

I think the challenge for us is to streamline everything we want to do because we have the large topic of migration/movement (which I think is important to introduce a few social movements as a form of migration--imagery ties in to that concept and we are having them incorporate imagery in the form of T-shirts) and two art forms. Just to break the days down, here is how I see the schedule so far. These times could be off, so see what you guys think. With this schedule, we are doing an up-and-down type of session, with them starting and ending each day in a a group lesson of some sort, broken up in the middle with a classroom activity where we move around. 

Monday:

First section--30 minutes: Introduce self and concept (Video, Push Pull factors). 

Second section--30 minutes: Ice-Breaker of House drawing

Final section--30 minutes: Personal Bio/Interview 

Tuesday:

First section--15 minutes: Introduce social movement/imagery as form of migration (Video, images on internet)

Second section--45 minutes: T-shirt art and clean up

Final section--30 minutes: Personal Bio/Interview

Wednesday:

First section--15 minutes: ???

Section section--45 minutes: T-shirt art and clean up

Final section--30 minutes: Personal Bio/Interview

Thursday: 

First section:

Second section: Digital Project--Selfies and group pics, then PP creation?

Final section:

Group 2: Group Title and Course Description

Group Title: 

Glocal-Trotting: Localizing Migration Through T-Shirt Design and Digital Photography

Course Description:


When you think about migration, what concepts occur to you--Displacement? Distance? Discouragement? While migration--the movement of things or people from one place to another--can be challenging at times, this course will offer you new ways to consider this concept. The reasons people migrate are varied, but all have certain particulars in common, such as new experiences in unfamiliar locations, expanded opportunities for personal development and an enhanced view of the world, both global and local.

In this course, you will learn of the history of migration, hear personal stories from each of your instructors and design and digitize your own ideas of migration in the form of T-shirts and digital photos you can take with you when the program ends. By the end of this course, you will also have discussed the history of T-shirts and artwork in modern political movements, practiced your interview skills on your instructors regarding their diverse backgrounds, and had endless fun creating your own works of art. Come Trot with Us!  

Initial Ideas for Monday Instruction

Group 2

This is somewhat disorganized, but let me know what you think about any of it. These are ideas for Monday's 90 minute instruction. I will do some more tomorrow night and really focus on it this weekend. Txs-Amy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJdT6QcSbQ0

animated map showing how humans migrated from Africa, goes back tens of thousands of years

ominous music but other than that is ok

Reasons for Migration

Push Reasons:

1.     Social—Poor Services, Lack of Education, Poor Medical Care

2.     Economic—Unemployment, Poor Pay, Hazardous Work Conditions

3.     Political—Persecution, War

Pull Reasons:

1.     Social—Plenty of food, Available Services, Lots of Doctors

2.     Economic—Job Opportunities, Better Quality of Life, Good Pay

3.     Political—Democracy, Freedoms

Could be taught by drawing out on board in a creative diagram using a drawing of the world as the center, stick figure person on each side of the world, one figure representing Pull and other representing Push concept.

Introduce topic of migration through definition and opening video of the history of it

Waves of Migration:

Gold Rush-US migrants out west

Jewish Migration to Europe

US Migration from Europe

US Migration from Africa

The Great Migration-African Americans north after Civil War

Refugee Migration-Syrian and others from Middle East

Australian Migration

Viking Migration-from northern Europe southward

South Pacific Migration

Ideas for making this a local issue:

Personal Stories from each of the facilitators

Personal Stories from participants if they feel comfortable

Examination of IU’s student base based on home locations

Examination of Personal Factors stemming from Migration:

1.     Identity—decision to keep home identity, to assimilate, or to blend both into self-identity

2.     2^nd and 3^rd Generation experiences much different than 1^st Generation

3.     Increased openness to other cultures-Diversity and Acceptance

4.     Rounded experiences—new food, traditions, awareness of global-social issues

Working in Groups

Creating Group-specific Posts

Much of the work in your groups will be done via posts to the main Balfour GALACTIC blog site. This post will explain how to create a post and tag it with a group-specific tag. This process will allow each group to easily filter the posts on the blog so that they can view only posts for their group.

Creating a New Post

When you log into blogger.com, you will see an orange "New post" button:

You will then be taken to the new post page:

If you then click on orange "Post settings" link to the right, it will expand:

Click on "Labels" to expand:

Then either click one of the existing labels below the text box, or enter your own:

And finally click the "Done" button to apply the label to your post.

Finishing Up

When you have applied all labels and finished writing your post, click the orange "Publish" button on the top right side of the screen to add your post to the blog.

If you want to view all the posts from Group 1, for example, go to the main page at https://balfourgalactic.blogspot.com/ and click on the "Group 1" link in the header bar as seen below:

Clicking that link will reload the page to show only those posts with the "group1" tag.

Next steps

Start posting!

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.