Brigid OBrien
Biology Movie Project Reflection
April 2017
What was the purpose of the project? To what extent did you and the class meet that
purpose?
The purpose of this project in a nutshell was to work as a class to create a movie that
incorporated scientific subjects such as crossing over, genetics, and gene mutation. I
think that I met this goal very well. Since I was in the script writing group, I collaborated
with my fellow writers to create a well thought out and clear story for our actors and
directors to be able to understand. I think we could have done better with writing the
script mechanically, but we did do very well working together to finish our script.
Even though we didnt finish the movie, in the end, most of the whole class had the
initiative and drive to work together. Although we all had different jobs and
responsibilities, we all collaborated to make a successful end product.
What did you personally do well throughout the project? What did the whole class do
well throughout the project?
Looking back on my work throughout this project, I think I did well in doing multiple
tasks for our overall project. I was a scriptwriter, actress, and a prop provider. Instead of
fulfilling the minimum for this project, I volunteered to do more work than asked. I also
think I did well in acting as a leader for our scriptwriting team. A lot of the time, I had to
make sure my teammates were writing what we had discussed along with asking my
teammates to be concise or develop their writing skills. The whole class did well in
growing as a team throughout this project as well. Near the beginning, we really
struggled with understanding and working with each other. However, by the end of the
project we were well tuned and mostly consistent in working hard together.
What challenges did you experience on a personal level (try to think about what you had
control over)? What challenges did we experience as a whole class? How could these
challenges (both personal and whole class) be better handled in the future (again, think
about what you can control)?
For the duration of this project, I experienced many challenges, most I overcame. While
preparing as an actress for the movie, I definitely experienced nervousness and anxiety
when auditioning and acting in front of all of my classmates. To overcome this, I had to
be confident and not care about judgement or what others in my class thought. Instead, I
focused on my lines and my enunciation. I also struggled with working with other people
in my scriptwriting group. Sometimes, I didnt like what my teammates wrote, and
therefore struggled with changing some of the lines without offending people. Next time,
perhaps I can discuss with my groupmates and make sure we are on the same page with
what type of writing we are doing. As a whole class, we definitely struggled with
collaborating and making sure everyone was doing their own part. I think we did well in
changing and overcoming this when we did our Restorative Justice Circle. I think that
people not doing their whole part in group work is inevitable, so we did pretty well for
the circumstances.
What did collaboration look like in this project? How did you collaborate in this project?
Collaboration in this project looked like working together with each individual doing
their part. I collaborated in multiple ways, by scriptwriting, acting, and making
suggestions to our directors.
What would you change about your approach to collaboration? What would you change
about the project? What would you keep the same about the project?
If I could change my approach to collaboration for this project, I would make sure to be beneficial
in my feedback to my scriptwriting group so that we could get our script done in a more timely
fashion, while also having written quality work. If I could change something about the project, I
would try to write the script quicker so that we could finish filming the movie in time for the
exhibition. On the other hand, I would keep our teammate struggles the same (the RJ process, not
getting along very well in the beginning, etc.) The reason for this is because from our struggle
with collaboration we learned and now can reflect upon how we need to work differently in order
to collaborate better with others in our class.
