Here is another wonderful classroom ideas segment! Every student walks into your room on day one carrying a story — you just can’t see it yet. Jessica Pack, the 2014 California Teacher of the Year, recorded this as she her 21st year in middle school, and she opens every year the same way: by handing students the tools to tell their own stories on film. Not at the end of the year as a reward. On day one, as the way in.
So, as we finish up our school year, let’s plan ahead for a powerful way to start school next year. This is the kind of thing that may take some thought and planning but is truly a fantastic way to open up the school year. Now is the time to think about it. (And yes, you can do this at the end of the school year too but both are better!)
In this show, Jessica walks us through her first two weeks — the children’s book that gets sixth graders making four-line video poems, the “I Am” poem she digitizes, and the generative tools in Adobe Express she uses to build prompting fluency and “AI citizenship” from the start. She’s honest about the messy early projects and the controlled chaos, and she tells the story of a student who asked to make a movie to process her grief — a reminder that we’re teaching life skills, not just standards. It’s a warm, practical listen full of back-to-school or any-time-of-year ideas. Moviemaking is a vital part of my classroom and I hope you’ll give it a try!
As a middle school teacher for 20 years and a California Teacher of the Year (2014), Jessica has continually worked to redefine what learning looks like in her classroom. Jessica is the author of “Moviemaking in the Classroom” published by ISTE. As an Adobe Innovator, she is an advocate for creativity and storytelling, demonstrated by the original content her students regularly publish for a global audience. Jessica is also an ISTE Community Leader who co-hosts two podcasts: The Edge ISTE Community Leader podcast and Storytelling Saves the World.
If this episode gave you an idea for back to school or any time of school year, share it with a friend.
This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Vicki Davis (00:04): Today’s show is sponsored by EF Educational Tours and their Career Readiness Tours. To show your students what careers look like up close and in action, go to eftours.com/ready and stay tuned at the end of the show to learn more.
Vicki Davis (00:23): Today we’re talking with Jessica Pack. She is starting her 21st year as a middle school teacher. She teaches ELA, ELD, and social studies. She was 2014 California Teacher of the Year and she’s the author of Moviemaking in the Classroom, published by ISTE. She’s also an Adobe Innovator. So Jessica, you say that every student has a story worth sharing and a voice worth hearing. So as we start the school year, how can we bring that mindset in on day one?
Jessica Pack (00:47): Oh my gosh, you know what? Moviemaking is such a great way to get to know your kiddos and who they are as people, so that they’re not just a new little body at a desk. They’re an actual, whole person, where you’re learning their hopes, their dreams, how they see themselves in the future, and how they identify most strongly now, where they’re at in life. So it’s a great culturally relevant strategy to roll out from day one.
Vicki Davis (01:07): So tell us a little bit about your classroom. Do you have kids using cell phones, or are cell phones banned in your school and you’re using webcams? What does your setup look like for making your movies?
Jessica Pack (01:17): So predominantly, I rely on my one-to-one Chromebook setup in my classroom. That tends to be district-wide how we utilize tech. But I do allow cell phone use as the year progresses for students to film original footage. They become more willing to introduce original footage and show their faces as the year goes on. But middle school specifically, they like to start the year maybe with Adobe Animate from audio, where it’s a little avatar instead of their actual face.
Vicki Davis (01:46): So describe that. You’re getting ready to start school as we’re recording this, and as this airs, you’ll be back in school. So what does that first assignment look like for you?
Jessica Pack (01:50): I have two first assignments planned in the first two weeks. The first one is utilizing the children’s book The Best Part of Me. And it’s just this fantastic book where kids celebrate the parts of themselves that are most unique, that they find the most value in, and then they share a little bit about themselves using video. So my students will be making these short little maybe four or five sentence poems as like an introduction to the tools and the platforms that we’ll use throughout the year. And then their second project, the second week, is to write an “I Am” poem about themselves, which, you know, that’s the gold standard of getting to know our kiddos. And we often have used them in the past, the analog version. I like to digitize that and really get to know who my kids are and their families, their neighborhoods that they’re coming from, the cultures that they are part of.
Vicki Davis (02:27): Mm-hmm.
Jessica Pack (02:37): So it’s just a really fantastic way to see my students as whole people.
Vicki Davis (02:42): Now you did say a word that we talk about a lot on my show — generative AI. And you’re just back from a conference with Adobe where y’all learned about all the new things. What are some of the newer generative pieces of film and photography that you’re most excited about bringing to your sixth graders?
Jessica Pack (02:54): I think what I’m most excited about is to really leverage the generative tools in Adobe Express from day one. Express is the program from Adobe that really kind of works best with my students, right? I mean, there’s fancier tools, but I’m with sixth graders. So we use Express, but I like the idea of being able to show them generative fill straight out the gate and do some of those lovely guided activities that Express publishes monthly, so that they can really build this fluency with prompting generative AI to give them the return that they want. So for me, I think this school year is about being intentional and really building in those sort of AI citizenship type of skills lessons to help them be successful.
Vicki Davis (03:36): And Jessica, I start with Adobe Express too. I mean, that’s where we have an AI art competition. We’ll be doing that in the month of August with my eighth graders, where they learn how to prompt and they learn how to create and they learn how to edit, you know, because some people get frustrated because they’re like, I can’t get anything out of my first prompt. And they don’t understand that it’s an iterative process, right?
Jessica Pack (03:54): Absolutely. I think, you know, the more that we can be transparent and model that type of iteration and thinking with our students, the more that they’ll understand that they need to do that independently. And that’s really sort of the metacognitive piece, right? Is teaching kids to think about how they’re thinking about AI. So, you know, I’m really excited to watch them grow.
Vicki Davis (04:15): Now sometimes I’ll see people who integrate technology into their classroom and they can get out of balance, because we have to balance curriculum with creativity, and those first couple weeks are really very much about classroom procedures as well and getting those routines established. How do you keep a balance?
Jessica Pack (04:29): For me, it’s really important to examine the task that I want my students to engage in and ask myself if tech is really what best serves that task, or if it’s something that we can be more analog and more interpersonal about. Like sometimes you just need to make a big giant collaborative poster with markers. And I think that that’s fine too. We need to give kids that time to socialize.
Vicki Davis (04:47): Yeah.
Jessica Pack (04:52): And really look at each other in the face and like have that conversation and that co-creation moment that maybe doesn’t involve tech all the time. And I think that that lays a great groundwork so that when we do introduce tech, they have this bond over this shared creativity, and they have a little more creative confidence to be able to move forward.
Vicki Davis (05:11): Now you talk about growth over grades, right?
Jessica Pack (05:18): Oh yes.
Vicki Davis (05:20): Okay, so can you tell us a story about a student whose creativity surprised you when grades took a backseat?
Jessica Pack (05:24): Yeah, you know, I think I really saw that with my English language learner students this past year. I taught a class of predominantly what we call LTEL students. It’s a long-term English language learner. So these are students who’d been in our school system for quite some time and hadn’t yet passed the proficiency exam. I took an approach to the class that was creativity-based and storytelling-based. So students just created a whole plethora of projects with Adobe Express, and having all of those tools and that creative freedom, I really saw them blossom as people, and their language skills improved. Yes, because we were in all four domains of reading, writing, listening, speaking. But I think more importantly, their self-concept and how they viewed themselves and their capabilities really improved. And it was just really lovely to see them speak with less hesitancy, write with less hesitancy. And they just kind of approached everything in the room — every task is like a workshop moment where we’re just going to keep trying and iterating until we get the best version that we like for this task. So it was just really lovely to watch.
Vicki Davis (06:24): And you know, project-based learning — I mean, this is really something that a lot of people who are grappling with what’s happening with AI keep coming back to. Project-based learning is the way that we’re going to teach. It’s the way we’re going to master. And particularly, I mean, in languages where AI can do translation for you, it would be easy to become overly dependent upon technology and not actually have a true understanding of language. Do you feel like this new approach is one that you’ll keep using with project-based learning and teaching these kids?
Jessica Pack (06:54): Absolutely. I think that anytime we’re trying to just automate or drill and kill worksheets — it’s looked a lot of different ways over the last 20 years in class. But those compliance-based type tasks are just not invigorating to students. And I think that’s when they seek AI to help them kind of do a workaround so they don’t have to spend so much time on it. But when it’s a project that they’re truly invested in, from just a standpoint as a learner or a standpoint as a person in general that they just find it compelling, those are the projects where they’re going to really put forward their best creative effort and be fully engaged. And that’s what we all want, right? We want classrooms full of joy and full of passion and full of all different types of learning. And I think that’s how you get it.
Vicki Davis (07:39): So when we make movies, a challenge I have — I teach film and work with my own students and also encourage other teachers to bring movies to their own classroom. Some people just can’t let go of perfection. Can you think about, like, things that don’t go as planned, and give us a story that actually turned into a meaningful moment, even though maybe the movie wasn’t perfect?
Jessica Pack (08:00): Absolutely. You know, I think one of the roadblocks for teachers is that they tend to leave moviemaking for the end of the school year, and they’re like, oh, that’ll be the fun thing we do to wrap up our year together. But when you build in intentional moments, maybe as unit assessment throughout the year where they’re constantly using storytelling as a vehicle for learning —
Vicki Davis (08:10): (laughs)
Jessica Pack (08:20): A lot of those early projects are messy, and maybe things are a little bit of controlled chaos in the room. But I think that that’s a really good thing, because by the end of the year, they’ll just be able to create these beautiful pieces that really showcase what they know about themselves in the world. So one student in particular I had several years ago used moviemaking as a vehicle to process personal grief. So she had had a loss in her family. And because we had so many storytelling opportunities, she came to me shortly after it happened and said, will you help me? Can I make a movie about this? Because I want people to know my story and to maybe learn from it. So that was a really powerful moment for me as a teacher, to remember that we’re not just teaching kids state standards. We’re teaching them life skills. And for her, it was a way to process complex emotion.
Vicki Davis (08:46): Mm.
Vicki Davis (08:48): So you have your book, Moviemaking in the Classroom, that ISTE has published that people can go to. But where is a simple starting point for somebody who says, okay, I like what Jessica’s saying, I want to try it. You’ve given us some of your beginning-of-the-year sorts of things, but can you give us something for a beginning teacher who’s completely new to moviemaking?
Jessica Pack (09:33): Sure, I would say find the point at the end of the unit where it could maybe be a capstone. And an introductory project could just be something like three frames that kind of showcase what we know about a topic, what are some questions we still have, and how will I seek the information that I still need. It could also be, if it’s beginning of the year, “me in three.” So just three frames about yourself and three sort of video or image clips that have that agreement piece where what you’re talking about, you’re hearing about, or you’re seeing. And so I really think that just starting small and manageable can be a great entry point.
Vicki Davis (10:08): You’ve given us so many ideas for back to school. This is Jessica Pack. Her book is Moviemaking in the Classroom. And so I hope everybody will pick it up. As someone who has been teaching movies for as long as I’ve been teaching, and teaching it in my regular computer science courses, teaching it in all my courses — it’s just so important. Story is part of who we are as humans, and project-based learning, we know, is something that’s unique and different that works. And with all these generative tools, kids don’t have to have their face on camera. I know some kids who just absolutely would never go on camera for that reason. So Jessica, you’ve given us so many great ideas. Where else can they go to find information about you and what you’re doing?
Jessica Pack (10:48): You can find me at packwoman.com. You can find me at jessicapack.com, and at packwoman208 on Instagram and X.
Vicki Davis (10:57): Okay, thank you, Jessica.
Jessica Pack (10:58): Thank you so much.
Vicki Davis (11:00): Teachers, show your students what a career actually looks like — not in a textbook, but in the real world. On an EF Career Readiness Tour, your students will connect with entrepreneurs at the London School of Economics, or they might go behind the scenes at Toyota’s manufacturing plant in Japan, or tour a French culinary school to see future chefs in action. EF Career Readiness Tours can take your students around the world for hands-on industry experience you can’t replicate in the classroom. Browse EF Career Readiness Tours at eftours.com/ready. That’s eftours.com/ready, and make careers come alive through travel.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode and blog post. EF Educational Tours has compensated me to share information about their Career Readiness Tours. However, all opinions expressed are my own. I have personally reviewed these resources and only recommend tools I believe offer genuine value to classroom teachers. My endorsement is limited to the educational products and services discussed in this episode. This post also contains Amazon affiliate links for books mentioned in the show; if you choose to buy, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” The sponsor has no impact on the editorial content of this show.
