This project was inspired by Kirsten Olson’s work in Wounded by School. Like Kirsten, your task is to interview people about their educational experiences in K-12 settings and analyze your findings to see how they match or differ from what Olson found.

Interview Details:

1. •You’ll be working in small groups of 3-4 people. Each person in your group must find at least three usable interviewees to include in the final presentation of findings. (For example, if someone responds that she or he has no real school memories, you’ll want to find someone else.)
   

2. •You must find people who had significantly different educational experiences than you did.
   

3. •We’ll develop ideas for questions to ask and people to identify as interviewees as a whole class and in small groups. As you begin thinking about these, consider the types of information you’d most like to garner from others. It may be helpful to look at Wounded by School and the various categories Olson offers. How might we help people remember details about what they experienced in their K-12 schooling?
   

4. •You must change the names of those who you interview to keep them anonymous. You should also use the Interview information and Permission form.
   

5. •Final Projects are Due in Class March 23.
   

Reporting Details:

You must present your final analysis on a group created web page. We’ll share these with each other in class by listing links here on the course web page. I suggest you use Wix because it is easy to use and also free. You may use other web developing sources if you’d rather use others. There are multiple benefits to using a web page to do this. First, we can share our results easily with others in the class. Second, you’ll have a variety of tools to help you present your findings. You can incorporate text, audio, video and still images in your discussion.

As you construct the final product, you have two main tasks:

1. 1.First, your task is to take your raw interview data and present it to your audience in a way that highlights the most important aspects of what you discussed. You should not merely upload complete transcripts, audio files or video. Your task is to analyze what your interviewees discussed and find a way to present the key themes to your audience.
   

2. 2.Second, your task is also to discuss how your interviews reflect or differ from what Olson discussed in her analyses of educational experiences. Thus, more than just reporting, I’m asking you to analyze  how your interviewees’ experiences, emotions, and thoughts about their schooling intersect with what Olson argues. So, your final web presentation should demonstrate your analytical skills and your familiarity with Olson’s work.
   

EDUCATIONAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS RUBRIC

LINK TO THE GROUP WEB PAGES