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Lights + camera + action = rich learning experiences
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, Graphic Organizers, Special Education, The Way I See It
Mathew was right! When I asked him for advice in an email about film making in the classroom, he told me to just take that little Flip Ultra camcorder into the classroom and start shooting. Just do it !!! So I did.
I took my little ultra cool Ultra Flip into the classroom and handed it to my students and told them that I wanted them to create a video about how to do a good presentation. I also told them that creating this video would enable them to practise their problem solving skills since I really didn’t have a clue what to do. I also told them I’d heard about story boards and scripts so they should probably should do those as part of this project too. That was all I told them. The rest was up to them. (I was more than a bit nervous but then I kept telling myself that the force was with me.)
I was really surprised that no asked my why I expected them to create a video when I didn’t know how to do it myself. After all, I was the teacher and supposed to know how to do everything. I guess that’s more my problem than theirs.
I really enjoyed watching the students bring it all together. They demonstrated skills I didn’t know they had, and I had lots of opportunity to catch them doing good. I have to be honest though and say that the experience wasn’t without it’s frustrations. I didn’t enjoy the fact that attendance in the class is a problem for some students so some groups had difficulty getting the filming done. In fact, some still haven’t completed the filming. Grrrrrr! I have to keep reminding myself the reason the kids are in my class is that they need extra support around things like attendance. If they had excellent attendance and work habits and didn’t need extra support, they wouldn’t be in my class to begin with.
I want to share one group’s efforts with you. I think they did a super job- all things considered. They even figured out how to do the editing- that’s next on my list. I told them that my course was not a film making course so I wasn’t expecting everything that a film making course would. (Some of you who know what you are doing when making films are probably shuddering right now. ) I told them that I was expecting to see collaboration, problem solving (lots of problem solving), negotiation, communication and presentation skills. These are some of the skills that they need to help them be successful in and out of the classroom. This assignment was a perfect opportunity to hone these important skills
I’m going to ask the kids to write reflections about this assignment and I’ll share some of those with you. I learned that camera + lights + action = rich learning experiences. I wonder what the kids learned?
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Congrats on what sounds like an exciting and successful adventure that’ll get even easier next time.
In regards to attendance I tell the students what day we’re filming and explain that if they’re absent they will not be in the movie (and then I add, “Welcome to Hollywood” but that might not work if you were to say that in Canada). This backfired only once when the kid playing Yoda threw up on camera because he came to school sick. Overall, I’ve seen that attendance improves in the month preceding and following when we make our class movie.