Silver Screen
One of the most endearing characters in the Funky Winkerbean comic strip was “Bull”, Westview High’s football coach and social studies teachers whose primary instructional strategy is showing films. The joke here is the suggested contradiction between the practice of showing films and “real” teaching. Yet, in truth, quality instruction has, and always will, involve a blend a variety of learning experiences of which visual media plays an important part. In this technological era, a strong argument could be made for expanding the use of visual imagery during instruction.
This type of lesson uses video as the medium to establish a tightly focused, active learning context for viewing classroom media that is aimed at introducing or supplementing content-based information. The student’s viewing challenge is driven by the Movie Information Sheet. In a Silver Screen lesson the use of specific media is carefully aligned with the achieving tightly targeted learning goals.
Implementation
- As with many active learning approaches to teaching, the teacher’s primary responsibilities occur before and after implementing the actual lesson.
· Prior to a Silver Screen lesson, the teacher defines the learning goals, identifies a relevant piece of video, and designs the Movie Information Sheet (MIS) that students use to gather and organize information.
· When the lesson is concluded, the teacher leads the summary discussion and promotes connections to the student learning goals.
2.Select the topic and the learning expectations targeted during the showing of a particular piece of video. Be sure to ask yourself:
- Is the video age-appropriate?
- Does the video contain any offensive or inappropriate content?
- How much of the video needs to be shown for students to make the desired learning connections?
3. Complete a Silver Screen Movie Guide that describes the specific task(s) for students to complete.
- Worksheets are not meant to supplement good interactive, thought provoking, hands-on activities.
4. Design and implement an appropriate assessment that will provide useful evidence to monitor student work and evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson.
Classroom Management
Silver Screen Project Ideas:
· Use stations in a Learning Circus with different, short videoclips and student Discovery Guides.
· Writing a Movie: Have students view a short action videoclip that contains little or no dialogue. Suggested films include the first 10 minutes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and Lion King. After viewing the segment, have students write a summary of the scene.
· Misconceptions Alert: have students identify misconceptions that appear in the video.
· Concept Clarification: have students identify the key STEM ideas found in the piece of video.
