Moving Image
Film-making in the classroom
Student teachers, new to editing and filming, may initially perceive the process as a complex one and foresee difficulties in using the technology with children. Whilst they see the benefits of such work, they sometimes stop short of experimenting in the classroom. Film-making can be seen as too complicated and risky to take on within the context of a block teaching placement. We tackle this in two ways:
- by encouraging them to look at examples of work that have been created by children and talking through the process through which this was achieved.
- by providing opportunities for experimentation within short projects outside the constraints of a placement.
Such examples can inspire student teachers and provide examples that they can in turn show to their pupils. However, it is hard to gain insights into the process through which these films were made and less confident students may find these examples intimidating. More helpful, perhaps, is to gain some insight into how teachers have organised for children to create videos.
One approach is to ask student teachers to make a film and then present them with a film made by children given the same brief. This means they gain first-hand insight into the process through which the film was made and the stages children had to tackle. This also generates suggestions about how the teaching sequence might be adapted for pupils of different age groups.
One example, we have used successfully, is a sequence involving the creation of a short film based on an excerpt from Louis Sachar's 'Holes'. We then show them films made by children using the same teaching sequence. Finally, we describe the process through which the children arrived at their film and discuss some of the problems they (and we) had to overcome in organising this filming.
So often student teachers' experiences within schools are highly structured by the curriculum, by the school and university demands. Opportunities for them to take complete ownership for a project may be few and far between. We have found that one of the most successful ways of engaging student teachers with film-making is to provide opportunities for them to work collaboratively on film projects in school. They develop a proposal for making a film in a school and negotiate the precise content and organisation with the school.
