POISE Framework | POISE Resources for Tutor Groups | POISE Workshop for Faculty | POISE Videos
Pace | Ownership | Innateness | Simplicity | Exactness
This page simply answers the question I have been asked… why cartoons? Please also note that the audio quality of these cartoons is not particularly good (they were produced in 2013). Work is ongoing to update them.
During the original POISE project, we discussed the many excellent ‘talking heads’ resources that were available. Indeed, a YouTube search reveals dozens of international students discussing their experiences. Our original intention was to add to this body of shareable testimonies and commentaries with similar live videos featuring individuals speaking.
However, as the project developed, it became clear that the most powerful evidence was not an individual’s statements but what emerged in dialogue with others; accordingly, a series of short vignettes of two or more students discussing their learning was deemed more appropriate.
Understandably, some of the participants in our developmental workshops were concerned that their honest declarations would be judged negatively by others. Early attempts to have individuals act out previously heard dialogues were unconvincing. We also identified that all of us, every one of us, will make a ‘judgement’ on seeing and hearing someone speak. We bring all our own personal histories and assumptions to bear. So we wanted to find a way of sharing these valuable insights, short snippets of students’ conversations about the POISE questions, without the person watching ‘jumping to conclusions’. We sought to avoid a tendency to say “ah, yes, Japanese students would say that”or “that’s what British students always say about maths.“
So we decided to use cartoons. The voices are not as natural as one would like, but they are ‘neutral’. It is obvious that they are not ‘real people’, but the dialogue is. The words spoken are students’ words. In our workshops, we have found that students and faculty watching the videos laugh a little at the ‘digital’ voices on the first clip, but soon acclimatise and start to listen to the actual dialogue.
The dialogue between students has been lightly edited, and a transcript is therefore available for each video. This also means that as technology improves, we can keep redoing the cartoons to achieve increasingly natural voices.