Purposeful Use of Film within the Classroom: Encouraging Student Engagement

1. Purposeful Use of Film within the Classroom: Encouraging Student Engagement Presented by Mandy Latz 27 February 2009 3rd Annual Learning College Conference, Ivy Tech Community College

2. Presentation Agenda • Overview of film use inside classrooms • Items to consider • Examples in a variety disciplines • Think-Pair-Share Activity

3. Why this topic? • My own in-class film use • Integration of film via Blackboard discussions • Need to articulate rationale • Student feedback • Better than me

4. Advocacy for Film Use • Meets students where they are • Is Google Making Us Stupid? • Brings course concepts to life • Variation in messenger • Provides a common experience to draw from • Leads well into various learning activities and assignments

5. Quotation “…instructors must learn, and in turn teach their students, how to make movie viewing a meaningful and active educational experience” (Sprau, 2001, para. 10).

6. Purposeful Use • Why are you showing the film? What is the purpose? • What learning outcomes are associated with the film? • How will you measure the intended outcomes? • Link film use with activity, assignment, discussion, etc. • Integrate film with course content

7. Quotation “…film in educational settings is often relegated to filler material for overworked, underprepared, or absent instructors” (Sprau, 2001, para. 10).

8. Considerations in Selection • Documentary versus fiction • Full length versus clips • Length of class • Method of presentation

9. Documentary versus Fiction • Hollywood movies • Novel and appealing to students • Easy to find • Students may perceive fiction as reality • Documentaries • May be hard to find • Closer to reality but may be historically or politically bias • Should be viewed critically

10. Quotation “One of the dangers of using feature film is that students often confuse what they see in it with the truth or attribute to a film the factual characteristics of a documentary. Although most films are not documentaries, they can carry great emotional power while delivering truths that reality obscures, as has been said about fiction. This emotional power can be a catalyst for thinking and learning. It is important to remember, however, that films are a starting point, not an end in themselves” (Harper & Rogers, 1999, para. 5).

11. Examples of Learning Activities • Historical fiction • Popular • Is it accurate? • Feature films in the psychology classroom • Diagnosis, identification • Rewriting the documentary from a different perspective

12. Specific Examples of Films

13. Full Length versus Clips • Consider the class time you have • Consider the actual full length of the film • Watching the whole film may be boring • Clips can overcome lack of class time to show entire film • Clips can be extracted to display particular character, scene, or concept • Clips can be difficult to manage • Go back to the overarching purpose of showing the piece • YouTube, Google Video, other websites (PBS)

14. Crafting Learning Activities • Some questions to consider… • What are you trying to achieve (in terms of student learning) by showing film? • How can you “stretch” your students? • How can you help them to think critically? • How can you enable them to use a variety of skills (writing, speaking, building)? • How can you help students enjoy the process?

15. Using the New Bloom’s • Building on remembering and understanding • Enabling students to create

16. Using Kolb’s Cycle • Moving from concrete experience (watching) to active experimentation (creating a new film)

17. Quotation “…an instructor, in selecting learning activities to correspond with each of the four poles of the experiential learning model, must give greater consideration to the functional use of the activity than to the activity itself” (Svinicki & Dixon, 1987, p. 144).

18. Personal Example from ANTH 154 • The Observation Exercise

19. Think-Pair-Share • How have you used films in your classrooms in the past? • What types of learning activities have you linked with film viewing in the past? • Brainstorm a new use of film within a class you are currently teaching • Create a short list of films to use • Create a learning activity for students that blends the film and your course content. • Can you describe your activity in terms of the New Bloom’s or Kolb’s Cycle?

20. References • Harper, R. E., & Rogers, L. E. (1999). Using feature films to teach human development concepts [Electronic version]. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education & Development, 38(2). • Sprau, R. (2001). I saw it in the movies: Suggestions for incorporating film and experiential learning in the college history survey course [Electronic version]. College Student Journal, 35(1). • Svinicki, M. D., & Dixon, N. M. (1987). The Kolb model modified for classroom activities. College Teaching, 35(4), 141-146.

21. I appreciate your attendance!