My core principle is that classrooms should be incitational.

After a frankly chaotic tri 1, one module has settled down and in my experience to date is running smoothly.

The ‘impressionistic’ nature of Stage 1’s holistic assessment, student-centred approach needs concrete resources and tools to make it work. I feel last tri ,good educational principles were sidelined in the rapid implementation of the program, and the student and staff suffered as a result.

 

Now we’ve mentally regrouped (and what champs we are) I’ve found the space to retain two key educational principles; scaffolding and explicit instruction. These are not incompatible with our approach, and in fact give strength to our students’ endeavors.

 

Some things that have worked in class for me in FLM172.

 

• Personalise language and jargon. Pretty sure students were going to strangle me if mentioned the words ‘group activity’ and ‘feedback’ one more time. Tweaking these has helped student engaged. I alternate between the terms ‘feedback’ and ‘commentary’. Where I can, I use authentic language but explicitly link it the concepts such as ‘pre-class’ and ‘post-class’ or feedback.

 

• Returned my personality to the class. More discursive interventions to create whole-group narratives around short learning events and opportunities. We can’t forget that teachers engage through the ‘performative self’, whether that self is demonstrated through talents such as Trinski, Darren, Rikki or Anita.

 

• Bringing back physicality into the classroom. Students are spending so much time in the digital space, especially in the editing classroom, it’s important to get them doing, thinking, listening  activities that encourage them to engage with their embodied selves. There’s a good reason why Walter Murch edits standing up. Editing and post may be done via digital tools, but they are engaging in an embodied world of physical, oral and emotive communication. It’s at the core of the craft, and in a film set, apart from a director, only the editor is as close to the actor’s or presenter’s craft as the performers themselves.

 

• Most importantly, the allocation of hours to create resources have allowed me to create comprehensive Weekly Online lectures (yes, I know we’re not meant call them that, but a horse is a horse, not a mule).

 

These are designed to be both informative and conversational, and used as weekly pre-class readings and viewings to scaffold each week’s project work and as jumping off points for their areas of interest.

 

At this stage, I’ve had the best results in the ‘flipped’ classroom work due to this as it’s very structured.  I’m interested to hear how other facilitators have fared interstate. There are of course those who aren’t engaging, but they’re are being exposed to peer models on this count.

 

Ultimately, to make this work the guide on the side is something of a ring-leader; bringing back a bit of showbiz has seen stronger engagement than last time. The principles of explicit instruction and scaffolding are critical, as it’s clear the students desperately need concrete ‘tentpoles’ in their learning terrain to make sense of all possibilities thrown up by their own unpacking of editorial concepts. It’s just that these tentpoles need to be embedded into the structure of the learning materials and the module itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FLM172_ Tri 2 blog.

 

After a frankly chaotic tri 1, this module has settled down and in my experience to date is running smoothly.

 

The ‘impressionistic’ nature of Stage 1’s holistic assessment, student-centred approach needs concrete resources and tools to make it work. I feel last tri ,good educational principles were sidelined in the rapid implementation of the program, and the student and staff suffered as a result.

 

Now we’ve mentally regrouped (and what champs we are) I’ve found the space to retain two key educational principles; scaffolding and explicit instruction. These are not incompatible with our approach, and in fact give strength to our students’ endeavors.

 

Some things that have worked in class for me in FLM172.

 

• Personalise language and jargon. Pretty sure students were going to strangle me if mentioned the words ‘group activity’ and ‘feedback’ one more time. Tweaking these has helped student engaged. I alternate between the terms ‘feedback’ and ‘commentary’. Where I can, I use authentic language but explicitly link it the concepts such as ‘pre-class’ and ‘post-class’ or feedback.

 

• Returned my personality to the class. More discursive interventions to create whole-group narratives around short learning events and opportunities. We can’t forget that teachers engage through the ‘performative self’, whether that self is demonstrated through talents such as Trinski, Darren, Rikki or Anita.

 

• Bringing back physicality into the classroom. Students are spending so much time in the digital space, especially in the editing classroom, it’s important to get them doing, thinking, listening  activities that encourage them to engage with their embodied selves. There’s a good reason why Walter Murch edits standing up. Editing and post may be done via digital tools, but they are engaging in an embodied world of physical, oral and emotive communication. It’s at the core of the craft, and in a film set, apart from a director, only the editor is as close to the actor’s or presenter’s craft as the performers themselves.

 

• Most importantly, the allocation of hours to create resources have allowed me to create comprehensive Weekly Online lectures (yes, I know we’re not meant call them that, but a horse is a horse, not a mule).

 

These are designed to be both informative and conversational, and used as weekly pre-class readings and viewings to scaffold each week’s project work and as jumping off points for their areas of interest.

 

At this stage, I’ve had the best results in the ‘flipped’ classroom work due to this as it’s very structured.  I’m interested to hear how other facilitators have fared interstate. There are of course those who aren’t engaging, but they’re are being exposed to peer models on this count.

 

Ultimately, to make this work the guide on the side is something of a ring-leader; bringing back a bit of showbiz has seen stronger engagement than last time. The principles of explicit instruction and scaffolding are critical, as it’s clear the students desperately need concrete ‘tentpoles’ in their learning terrain to make sense of all possibilities thrown up by their own unpacking of editorial concepts. It’s just that these tentpoles need to be embedded into the structure of the learning materials and the module itself.