UWS Student Mary-Jo signed up for Next Generation. She
logged onto the website
and got a good feel for the Next Generation project and what was involved.
She
thought about a project she would like to do, and being passionate about writing
she decided to put forward her idea of creating a magazine with the students.
This would involve writing stories & interviews, editing them, taking photos
and drawing illustrations, deciding on a name and cover design (could be a little
competition) and laying out the magazine for printing. Mary-Jo also approached
some printers and one of them agreed to publish the magazine at cost
price. She
also organised for the editor of a magazine to come and talk to the students
about their job and the magazine industry.
She selected 5 programs she wanted
to apply to and sent off her Expression of Interest to them via the website.
One of the programs had listed a project suggestion of making a school year book,
so instead of submitting her own idea (the magazine) to them, she developed their
idea and sent that instead.
A couple of the programs responded and said they
already had a student-teacher, however two were very interested in her idea so
they arranged a time for a face-to-face meeting. This gave Mary-Jo and the program
coordinator the chance to discuss her project idea, their program, the students
and how it would work – what it would take to make the project happen (timing/materials/budget). She also spoke to the students to see if they were interested in her project idea. The students gave her some suggestions to modify her project idea from the initial plan – this gave the students some ownership of the project and was a positive step in Mary-Jo’s preparation. Jo decided to go with Program Links because, even though it was further
to travel, she felt she would get the most from the experience there.
She went
home and wrote up her project plan and submitted it via the website to the Program
coordinator and the University.
The first day with the students was a challenge as she realised she needed to keep each of them interested and understanding
the purpose of what they were doing. Giving the students ownership of the project
made a big difference though.
Project Conducted
By the end of the project she’d built up a great
rapport with the students, and learnt a lot from the program coordinator
about being flexible and working with students.
With the
magazine finished, and the students very proud of their achievement, Mary-Jo
conducted a survey to see how she went, and jumped back on the website to reflect on her experience.
