Learn

Part A.

• Describe your Capstone Challenge and how you identified it.

The Story Stroll project came out of a need for bringing the school and community together–providing an opportunity for what we do in the classroom to become a part of the daily life of our community. The Story Stroll project invites community members to get outside, to exercise/walk, enjoy nature, and to also enjoy a story along the way that was written and illustrated (and recorded) by our local students. The need was also inspired by the reality that what we do in school can be for the greater good outside of school. That writing and reading can also have other benefits when put in the format of a Story Stroll. I hope that it continues to inspire creativity and thinking of others/kindness.

• Describe your diverse stakeholders and how you selected them, such as colleagues, parents, students, association members, community members, state or local partners, etc.

This project is founded on the idea of joining families together through reading. As such, it led me to working with our public library and teachers. The addition of the UMWestern college and their students was an important, but party in which I had not initially thought of when proposing this project back in the Summer of 2021.

• Why is it important for your diverse stakeholders that the Capstone Challenge be addressed?

The Dillon community has never had a project like this put into place to build a bridge between community and school/students.

No community and school collaborations. New way to communicate and share with community what our local students are capable of and use that to bring the community together. Advocate for literacy in a new way. Bring parents and kids together outside of school in a new way

• In what ways will addressing the Capstone Challenge promote or support the foundational competencies?

This project is founded on collaboration. Intentional collaboration with the purpose of bringing the community together both in the process of its making, but also the final product. This project's intent was to recognize something our community could strengthen from its addition to our town and for the families that use it. It allows all groups in the process of its making and in the final product to come together in the process of writing, drawing, recording, and finally sharing and reading a story together.

Part B.

On which two Overarching Competencies will you focus in addressing your Capstone Challenge?  Why are they relevant? 

Technological Facility: The Story Stroll project required a few new tasks involving technology to produce this type of project. This project allowed me to emerge into a developing and performing stage. Several meetings during this project were to engage in professional 1 on 1 collaborations to learn how to use Synth recording and QR codes applications to produce the project for an audio aspect to the project. This increased my knowledge of new technology to use for the future as well. We plan on demonstrating our use of these technologies in upcoming conferences for the library to show how we put this project together for our community.This project allowed me to use research and collaboration skills to learn the new technologies to apply to this project and to teach college and middle schoolers how to use it to bring the project the audio element we wanted. This aspect was appealing to several groups participating as it builds on verbal/speaking skills for those participating and helped stakeholders respond well to the project idea.

Personal Effectiveness: Using leadership to initiate a Story Stroll project for the community that would bring the community together with multiple parties involved to make the project possible. Build communication and trust with working partners to make the project worthwhile: organized, scheduled plans to meet goals/timeline dates. I would say the Story Stroll project allowed me to grow into the performing stage. This project called for a lot of organization, research, collaboration, and communication. I feel all of these elements helped build on effective leadership skills to run a project that involved multiple parties, successfully. Keeping all participating groups involved, well-communicated, and prepared helped to guide participants in the project.

• If your foundational competency is not Explore and Challenge Inequity, please explain?  Why is it important? 

Collaborate Purposefully. I believe the Story Stroll project, at its foundation, is meant to bring literacy to life for a community. Each of my students is a reflection of the community’s diversity, but in order to create a Story Stroll, I need the collaboration with many other community groups within and outside of the school to make it a success.To collaborate purposefully I need to work with different groups in the community to make the project a success. For this first Story Stroll pilot project, I have been working on involving different groups and collaborating with them to meet our self-created deadline of April 27th: UMWestern college, Dillon Public Library, 1st grade staff, art teacher, and administration. I have the hope of including our Spanish teacher/students in the future project. The project has been an ongoing self-education and reflective project so far.

• Which Leadership Pathway competency will you focus in your Capstone Challenge?  Why is it relevant? 

Community, Awareness, Engagement, and Advocacy. The Story Stroll project was intended/created for building community connections. This leadership competency asks for a new way to advocate for students learning in new ways, identify what the community might benefit from to connect with students learning. This project is an advocate for student learning outside the classroom/bigger than themselves and for an audience that will directly see the impact of their work. This includes the 1st graders, middle schoolers, and college students. I believe this project will move me from Emerging where the Story Stroll was an idea to bring community and student learning together, and because of the planning and interconnections with other community stakeholders, this allowed me to connect families interests and their kids with a project that bridges school and community together. I believe this project will allow me to move to a Performing Stage, where this project will strengthen the school and community connection, strengthen teaching relationships with other teachers and community partners for future collaborations.

• With whom will you work in addressing your Capstone Challenge?  Who else might you recruit beyond your own cultural and/or professional identity group?

This Capstone Project was require an awesome collaboration with my 8th grade language arts students; the four 1st grade teachers in Parkview Elementary and their 1st grade students; the DMS art teacher; the UMWestern professor and her technology/education students, and the director of our Dillon Public Library.

• Which resources (such as, people, money, programs, time and space, etc.) do you have to address in your Capstone Challenge?   What resources will you need?  How will you obtain them? 

This Capstone Project will require the following resources:

+funding from United Way and Friends of the Library grant support through presentations

+collaboration with Dillon Public Library, UMWestern, and fellow teachers

+planning and organization for the debut Night of Excellence on April 26, 2022

Target Group: Dillon Public Library/UMWestern/1st grade teacher collaboration group

4. Identify Major Concerns

+Story Stroll project has multiple faucets to make it come to life, including fundraising/grant writing to support the project

+Communication between all parties in the collaboration group to make sure everyone is feeling prepared and fairly involved in the process from start to finish

+Time commitments from all parties in the collaboration group to successfully implement the project by April deadline

5. Determine Indicators of Needs

+Time collaboration for putting all aspects of project together from September through April

+Effective scheduling to meet all aspects of the project: recording, artwork, writing, editing, collaboration, presentation of final product

6. Consider Data Source(s) - both documents and people

+UMWestern collaboration with Katrina Kennett and her technology classes (1 in Fall 2020, 1 in Spring 2022) for supporting writing and recording process of Story Stroll project

+Dillon Public Library collaboration with Lori Roberts to help organize and share resources and time to put together the project for our community. Important collaborator for grant writing and supporting the making of this project.

+1st grade teachers and students as the audience of the story stroll project, but also the voices for the recording

+8th Art teacher and students as the illustrators of the story stroll pages to accompany th story for visual effects

7. Decide Preliminary Priorities

+Initial meetings to plan project dates and timelines and goals

+Establish meetings and times to collaborate throughout the process of creating the Story Stroll project to make sure each element is on time and successful in implementation

8. What potential biases or barriers are you anticipating? Why? Have you considered solutions? If so, what would they be?

+Funding barriers: the Story Stroll project requires extra costs to produce this product for the community that is outside my normal classroom budget/school budget.

+Solutions: Grant writing for local support from organizations like the Art Council or United Way to help the funding of producing the Story Stroll

9. What format(s) will you be using for your needs assessment? Why this choice?

• Observation & Interviews: As this project is built from my own knowledge of the importance of literacy and encouraging families to come together for reading, I will be using personal observations and interviews as the means of my needs assessment. The parties involved are local and for creating the Story Stroll project, observation and interview work best for gathering data and moving forward on creating the project.

10. As you consider the need(s), identify your likely allies - why? Most likely opponents - why? Refer to your Power Map

• Allies & Reasoning: UMWestern college support from local professor and education technology classes. This will support future teachers on chances to come into the classroom and see first-hand experience of incorporating technology into the classroom with elementary and middle school age students

• Dillon Public Library: support will create a project that is long-standing for the community, promotes literacy, family time, and exercise.

• Principal & Teachers: support will showcase student’s collaboration between grade levels in the form of literacy, art, technology, and broadcast a project that was created with the intent of bringing the community together

• Opponents & Reasoning:

+No opponents came from this project proposal

11. As a Fellow, how will you include diverse stakeholders and diverse perspectives in conducting your Needs Assessment?

+Interviews with community members invested in literacy and community projects. I will include in the creation of this project the Dillon Public Library, UMWestern college, and local art teacher, 1st grade staff and students, and 8th grade students from language arts classes. This variety of perspectives will bring knowledge and experience from different areas of working for the community together.

12. Consider possible indicators of success:

• Successful debut of the Story Stroll at the Parkview Elementary Night of Excellence with families participating in the Story Stroll.

• Feedback form for participants to share their thoughts and experiences after participating in the Story Stroll