Positive Actions with Stop-Motion Animations

Collaborative problem-solving is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching in a visual arts classroom. However, this opportunity doesn’t just lend itself to one learning space. Just as it is important for students to work together, teachers should also be driven to find common ground in their curriculum.

An easy place for me to start is working with the STEM teacher. Not only do we both use a curriculum driven by solving problems, but we also happen to share students throughout the year. During the first full week of school, we take advantage of an overlap in our curriculum by launching our first STEAM collaboration: Public Service Announcement (PSA) Animations.

Preliminary Exploration
Because I work in a choice-based, thematic-driven classroom, students usually get to choose their own materials. For this collaboration, however, they work in groups of four (two STEM students and two art students) to create PSA animations using iPads.

We begin by establishing how animation incorporates science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Using short videos from Mr. Wizardʼs World and Pixar in a Box (see Resources), students learn key terms such as persistence of vision, frame rate, storyboard, and key frame.

When we first taught this lesson, the STEM teacher and I dove right into creating the PSAs. Based on student feedback, we now include time for skill-building with a series of four exercises: two analog (flip-book and thaumatrope) and two digital (stop-motion and frame-by-frame) using Stop Motion Studio and Do Ink.

After the four types of animation are explored, students collaborate on one iPad to combine the techniques and use iMovie to create an animation, including a title, credits, and audio. This not only helps students understand some basic ways to use the materials provided to create moving images, but it also reveals individual strengths and potential group roles before they start planning their PSAs.

Investigating PSAs
After exploring how animations work, we look at how and why PSAs are used in society. Students make a Venn diagram with the term commercial on one side and public service announcement on the other. After five minutes of small-group discussion, we share findings as a class to identify similarities and differences between the two.

Students are then shown additional methods that are used as ways to persuade behavior, which is what all PSAs are trying to do. To illustrate, we show examples of past student work that use positive or negative messaging, humor, and other tactics to get a message across.

We also ask students to consider a target audience by focusing on elementary-aged viewers, since we later share their finished PSAs with our elementary counterparts.

Planning and Feedback
Next, students select roles within their groups—project manager, storyboard artist, lead animator, and video editor—and choose from three PSA topics: Celebrating Diversity, Healthy Habits, and Developing Character. They then plan their storyboards. Having clear roles for each student helps divide the work and keep them invested in both their part and the groupʼs overall success.

Once storyboards are complete, students share them for peer feedback and approval from the STEM teacher or me. Throughout the process, we use the prompts I like, I wish, I wonder to guide constructive feedback. These check-ins happen at the planning stage, mid-project, and toward the end. The most important feedback sessions are toward the beginning because they allow students to make big changes or get affirmations about the work.

Approval of the topic from the teacher is also important so that what students are creating relates to the topic they selected in a way that makes sense and doesnʼt lean on clichés or stereotypes. Because we are working with middle-school students, these early conversations are especially important, as they help set a thoughtful tone before production begins.

Animations in Progress
Students spend the next several days creating their animations and editing them to make sure they are no more than thirty seconds long. Students are able to use any of the methods explored from our skill builder, or they can use other tools to complete the animations they want to make. Even though there are specific roles for each person in the group, all are expected to help in the creation of the animation and contribute to the completion of the PSA.

During this time, the STEM teacher and I also go over the rubric for the project, which evaluates group work, content clarity, and animation quality. Students are asked to refer to the rubric regularly, as well as document their daily accomplishments on their planning guide.

Evaluation
When students finish their PSA animations, they share their work with the class, both to showcase their own projects and to see what others have created. As students rotate between groups, the STEM teacher and I meet with each group to score the PSAs and provide feedback. This allows students, if they choose, to make adjustments based on the input they receive.

We also give students the opportunity to submit their work to local, state, and national film competitions, as well as share it with our elementary school counterparts, allowing younger artists to view their work as the intended audience. By finishing the project in this way, students are able to reflect on their learning and learn from others, and we are able to see how they collaboratively solved a creative problem using concepts from science, technology, engineering, art, and math to create stop-motion animation PSAs.