Janice Sestan and Rachelle Meilleur Educator Impact Story (Japan and Canada)

Janice Sestan is an educator at Douglas College in Canada, and Rachelle Meilleur is an educator at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in Japan. They worked together on a Virtual Exchange as part of The SDG Challenge: Advancing Global Citizenship Education Through The Power of Film in partnership with UNESCO-APCEIU. Janice and Rachelle screened multiple films, including A Magical Place, Girls Like Us, Cross World, Walking 2.0, and Girls In Control: Tanzania. Through the films, they encouraged students to connect with several Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) including Number 1: No Poverty, Number 4: Quality Education, Number 5: Gender Equality, Number 13: Climate Action, Number 14: Life Below Water, and Number 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.

How did you use SIMA Academy films with your students?

SIMA Academy’s SDG Challenge was adopted as part of a Virtual Exchange (VE) initiative between two institutions: Douglas College in Canada, and Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in Japan. In the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) collaboration, students were assembled into small groups with approximately three students from each institute. Each group worked off of a shared Padlet that allowed for posting and discussion. Same-institution members recommended one documentary from SIMA (from the SDG collection) to their group partners at the other institution. Film recommendations were posted, along with the reason for the selection and two questions about the film. After recommendations were posted, students had a week to view the recommended films and respond to the questions and engage in discussion with each other. The process was repeated twice so that all student groups had viewed and discussed four films. From this process of recommending-viewing-discussing, students shared their points of view, reactions and feelings about the films. They were able to post comments, ask each other questions, and relate the films to their own experience, or perhaps their own countries/cultural perspectives. 

From the sharing and discussing together, students increased their awareness of the UN SDGs in general, and were introduced to global or social issues in specific locations that were shown in films. This online film viewing/discussion task was then directly connected to the collaborative project that the groups worked on next, which was to create an awareness campaign for one SDG. The groups reviewed the SDGs they noted in the films and ultimately chose one SGD goal to use for the project. Our hope was that the films provided some inspiration to decide on an SDG that came out of the films.

How would you describe the learning experience for your students? 

Using SIMA Academy as a platform to introduce global and social issues to our students was a fantastic tool for a virtual exchange experience. Film discussion provided a conduit for our students to connect across time zones since students in both Canada and Japan could easily access and view the same film. Viewing the same films and discussing them gave our students a tangible reason to communicate with each other online, and the films available on the SIMA website gave the students choice on topics they were interested in or curious about.

Please tell us what you learned in the process of implementing this lesson with your classroom?

Since the lesson was adapted for a COIL collaboration, both professors involved had to learn ways to implement the project differently than the guidelines provided in the lesson plan from SIMA Academy. We needed to introduce the project to our classes in the same way, and prepare our students ahead of time with some background information related to the UN SDGs. We also had to arrange the SIMA account access for all of the students and then design a process for students to work virtually. We used the online tool, Padlet, so the groups could interact, and this allowed us to see all student groups’ film recommendations and discussions. From viewing their Padlets, we have learned which issues interest our students the most. It was interesting to see that some films were selected by multiple groups from both Canada and Japan students. For example, “A Magical Place” and Girls Like Us’ showed up as a film choice in several groups. For SDGs, three groups presented on SDG 4: Quality Education and three on SDG 5: Gender Equality, which shows a high interest in those two topics. From the video presentations, and engaging in comparative analysis, everyone, students and professors included, found it interesting to see what examples students used to show each other how their country/community/citizens are addressing the SDG.

Please tell us about the student impact campaign(s) that followed the screening(s):

For the campaigns, group members focused on their own campus, community or country and the SDG goal or a particular target of the goal. Student members of each group individually contributed to a shared PowerPoint slide deck adding their 1) examples of individuals or celebrities, government-actions or organizations that are involved in achieving the SDG goal and 2) ideas or examples of solutions that are needed to move the goal forward. They added video narration to their slides and then converted the slides into an mp4 video format so the presentations could be viewed easily. The result was one cohesive presentation that explored an SDG from both Japan and Canada perspectives presented by students from two different institutions. The awareness campaign video project that the student groups created collaboratively demonstrated they had gained an appreciation for diverse perspectives about the ways a particular global issue affects people in different parts of the world. 

By showing each other examples of ideas or solutions from their respective campuses, local communities, and countries, students developed a greater awareness of the connectivity people around the world have towards the global goals as well as various approaches to the solutions. Learning outcomes for this project included improving students’ intercultural understanding and competence as well as global competencies. Although these are sometimes difficult outcomes to measure, this project brought students opportunities to interact with others from different backgrounds, fostering openness, respect and appreciation for cultural diversity