At first, Natalie and I wanted to work on 20 time about cat health, and then we realized we couldn't really test our ideas safely on our pets. Then we wanted to do nutrition, but we thought there wouldn't be much variation because our lifestyles are both similar. Also, it is hard to be consistent and rely on food as the cause and effect because things like sleep, and physical activity also come into play. We first thought about memes as a joke, but we were excited and determined to make this a great project when we got the approval.
The goal of our 20 Time project was to prove how studying with memes makes student's more engaged and able to retain information. We decided to do this because we realized that students get bored easily, and give up on learning easily. Natalie and I wanted to provide an effective, yet an engaging way for students to be motivated to learn.
Our initial plan was to create a booklet of memes for people to study with, and a booklet for notes for the other test group to study with. We soon realized that with the unknown number of people as well as with printing costs, that this wasn't going to workout. We ditched that plan and turned to the digital format, which is great because memes are usually digital. We did want to originally create a Kahoot! test for the experiment, and we ended up following through with that plan. Kahoot! also brings a fun, engaging, and competitive edge to learning.
We also learned that we should have contacted people earlier in the process about being test subjects. We made a Google form for people who were interested and we ended up with about 10 people taking the test. Also, some people showed up really late and didn't study, defeating the point of the experiment. Natalie and I both learned how hard it is to find people that fit exactly what you're looking for, and although those people will never exist, we learned how to deal with the chaos of running an experiment with so many teenagers.
One of our biggest setbacks was finding a color printer to print out the memes for the posterboard. We went to various classrooms during multiple tutorials, and we ended up printing some at the journalism classroom, and most at my house.
I really liked doing this kind of project because I felt like I developed a lot of "soft skills" with all of the freedom we were given. Although we did encounter some ups and downs, we faced our problems head-on and came up with great solutions. Natalie and I worked really well as a team, and we learned to collaborate well and bounce ideas off each other. We learned a lot about time management because when we had such little time, we felt like planning wasn't enough. Later we realized that it was a big part of the process, and we did manage our time well and stay on task every time.
If I had the chance to do this project again, I would probably focus more on the technical aspect of the experimental test, just for accuracy. I feel like there were a lot of different variables, but some things were just out of our control. But our "big-picture" style of working was somewhat effective and helped us create a final outcome in the end.
I learned about how myself, personally, am a visual learner, and I think that's why this project was so appealing to me. I was able to make facts that would usually feel boring, and turn it into something funny and memorable. We did set deadlines for ourselves, which we followed, but it was really hard making memes under pressure. Just making the memes was a learning process. Similar to how making a study guide can help you review and study what you need to know, making your own, original memes are more effective. Also, people might not have the same sense of humor as you, so it's better to just have your own unique way of studying. It would be really fun if everyone in the class could make a meme study guide for a test, and maybe see how it goes.
As for continuing this challenge, I would probably make little jokes and pneumonic devices to help me remember information because good memes do take a lot of effort and creative energy. But I will definitely share this experience with others because what I do know is that everyone's learning preference is different, but memes can help everyone learn. Even if they don't remember, they'll remember how it brightened up their day.
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