Media and the Curriculum

Topic 7: Teaching Strategies

What are some common classroom approaches to the teaching of Media? Topic 7 explores some teaching strategies. Buckingham outlines textual analysis, contextual analysis, case studies, translations, simulations and production. Connolly’s chapter gives a detailed look at the use of video production in the Media classroom to teach about the moving image. O’Brien’s text describes a range of strategies for the teaching of visual literacy.

These approaches: recognise and utilise what students already know, encourage ‘active learning’ on the part of students, entail the acquisition of skills and knowledge through direct instruction or via students research and inquiry, seek to engage students in learning about the media and toencourage students to think critically or deeply about the media.

On successful completion of this topic you should be able to plan a program of media learning that uses a range of teaching strategies; and justify the use of using a range of teaching strategies to teach about the media.

Resources

1. Teaching video Media production, or view at Schools World TV http://www.schoolsworld.tv/videos/teaching-media-media-production-in-the-classroom

2. Here is a website with some resources associated with teaching television genre and film, including Big Fish and Edward Scissorhands, as well as student lesson plans: http://mediateacher.squarespace.com/film-teaching-guides/

3. Visual texts and technologies: Flickr, Picassa, Capzles

Readings

Buckingham, D. (2003). Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture. Polity: Cambridge, pp 70-85.

O’Brien, A. (1999). Reading TV: A Basic Visual Literacy. In J. Callow (Ed) Image Matters: Visual Texts in the Classroom. Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association.

Connolly, S. (2008). Using Video Production Work to Teach About the Language of the Moving Image. In A. Burns & C. Durrant (Eds). Media Teaching: Language, Audience and Production. Kensington Gardens: Wakefield Press.

Activities

Focus Questions

1. Teaching involves creating and delivering learning programs and experiences that enable your students to learn complex and abstract concepts. Use the tool below to brainstorm complex or abstract concepts and ideas related to any aspect of media, such as representation, metonymy, convergence, etc.

Brainstorm concepts related to the media that you may need to te... at AnswerGarden.ch.

2. Choose one of the concepts and write a short description of how you might teach that concept to your students. What may be some teaching strategies effective for teaching that concept?

Activities for External Students

1. Complete the above focus questions.

2. There are many websites that can be used to teach students about visual texts. Describe how you might teach about some aspect of visual texts by using one of the following: a desktop program such as PowerPoint or Keynote, or a website such as Flickr, Picassa and Capzles.

Workshop Activities

1. Individual workshop presentation and discussion (Topics 6 & 7).

2. As our last two workshops have been interrupted by Easter and my absence, I want us to spend a bit of time reviewing the readings and ideas of the last two topics.

3. There are many websites that can be used to teach students about visual texts. Describe how you might teach about some aspect of visual texts by using one of the following: a desktop program such as PowerPoint or Keynote, or a website such as Flickr, Picassa and Capzles.

4. By this week you should be making some progress on your website. Share with the workshop group your Assignment 3 website. Include in your informal presentation such things as: topic, design and layout, curriculum objectives, resources you are using, issues you have experienced, etc. Use this presentation as an opportunity to give and receive feedback on your and others’ websites and programs.

5. Continue working on your website. Consider publishing what you have so far and sharing the link with other students.

Readings Feedback

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