{"id":537,"date":"2010-01-01T01:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-01T01:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/cite\/2016\/02\/09\/video-production-as-an-instructional-strategy-content-learning-and-teacher-practice\/"},"modified":"2016-06-04T01:55:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T01:55:24","slug":"video-production-as-an-instructional-strategy-content-learning-and-teacher-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/volume-10\/issue-1-10\/current-practice\/video-production-as-an-instructional-strategy-content-learning-and-teacher-practice","title":{"rendered":"Video Production as an Instructional Strategy: Content Learning and Teacher Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s students are not abandoning TV for new media \u2013 they watch more TV than ever. They love the Internet but spend far less time browsing than adults. They watch less online video than most adults but find the ads engaging. They read newspapers, listen to the radio, and even like advertising more than most. They play video games, but only two of their five favorites are rated Mature by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Their favorite TV shows, websites, and genre preferences across media are mostly the same as their parents: American Idol<\/em> was the top TV show, Google the top website, and dramas their preferred TV genre (The Nielsen Company, 2009). In fact, today\u2019s students are not uniquely wired but are an \u201cartifact of larger, demographically broader shifts in media behavior. Teens are wildly different \u2013not from other consumers today, but from teens of generations past\u201d (p. 16).<\/p>\n

One important characteristic of today\u2019s students\u2019 interaction with media is their increased concurrent media use and their rate of media multitasking (Roberts & Foehr, 2008). Increasingly, \u201cthe millennial generation, immersed in popular and online cultures, thinks of messages and meanings multimodally<\/em>\u2014not just in terms of printed words, but also in terms of images and music\u201d (Miller, 2007, p. 62). Roberts and Foehr (2008) argued that the headline covering the findings from research on media exposure over the past ten years is that concurrent use of multiple media has become the order of the day among young people. Young people listen while they watch, while they click, and sometimes at least, write.<\/p>\n

Media Literacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

In light of the unique media savvy, multimodal, and multitasking attributes of today\u2019s student, researchers are responding with a renewed interest in media literacy. Although no single definition predominates in the literature, media literacy has generally been defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms (Aufderheide, 1993). It is used to refer to the process of critically analyzing and learning to create one\u2019s own messages in print, audio, video, and multimedia. Media literacy often incorporates the goal of “discriminating responsiveness” or the fostering of critical analysis in its participants (Brown, 1998) and involves “asking questions about what you watch, see and read” (Hobbs, 2001, p. 5). By encouraging ongoing critical inquiry, those interested in media literacy seek the development of critical viewers\u2014those who have or are learning to analyze and question what is on the screen, how it is constructed, and what may have been left out (Thoman, 1999).<\/p>\n

Education and Media Production<\/strong><\/p>\n

Students cannot become truly media literate\u2014deeply critical consumers of mass media\u2014until they can experience making photographs, planning and organizing ideas through storyboards, writing scripts and performing in front of a camera, designing a web page, and reporting a news story. Goodman (1996) stated, \u201cThe power of technology is unleashed when students can use it in their own hands as authors of their own work and use it for critical inquiry, self-reflection, and creative expression\u201d (as quoted in Hobbs, 1998, p. 20). Media literacy necessarily entails \u201cwriting\u201d as well as \u201creading\u201d the media (Buckingham, 2005).<\/p>\n

By comparison with the wealth of research on children\u2019s understanding of media, the research related to media production is limited (Buckingham, 2005). Nevertheless, some research has been reported related to the effect of specific approaches to media production. Burn and Reed (1999) reported the value of modeling editing processes informally on whiteboards. Sweetlove (2001) found peer tutoring valuable in teaching the use of iMovie to 11-year-olds. Burn and Parker (2003) found that collaboration between teachers of art, English, media, and music was productive when helping 10-year-old students create an animation.<\/p>\n

Although many educators embrace the importance of media production, others wonder what students actually learn when they make videos (Grahame, 1991). The most important concern about this \u201cpractical work\u201d centers on fears that media production can easily be taught as a decontextualized set of tasks that emphasize a type of vocational education. As Stafford (1992) explained, \u201cThe great risk with practical work . . . is that students will simply learn to ape the professionals, and that a critical, analytical perspective will be lost\u201d (p. 171).<\/p>\n

Video Production as an Instructional Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

One way to combat concerns about video production as decontextualized or without a focused content is to link it with the ongoing curricular requirements of particular learning contexts. Video production then becomes an instructional strategy for teaching content, not a set of tools and processes to be mastered as isolated skills.<\/p>\n

Instructional strategies are what instructors do to facilitate student learning (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005). As Jonassen, Grabinger, and Harris (1991) stated, instructional strategies are \u201cthe plans and techniques that the instructor\/instructional designer uses to engage the learner and facilitate learning\u201d (p. 34) and represent \u201ca plan, method or series of activities, aimed at obtaining a specific goal\u201d (p. 31). Thus, for example, video production as an instructional strategy might link video essays with Civil War concepts or documentaries with the study of historical and current immigration issues or marketing videos with promoting a book, an invention, or an environmental cleanup. In this application of video production, the media are not studied formally, but the analysis of media text and the creation of media messages are emphasized as components of course work in the traditional disciplines.<\/p>\n

This approach, in the hands of a well-qualified educator, carries with it the potential for students to gain exposure to media analysis and production activities while simultaneously mastering the complexities of disciplinary knowledge (Hobbs, 1998). As Hofer and Swan (2005) wrote, \u201cThe engaging and flexible nature of digital moviemaking projects offers great potential to ground the use of technology in discipline-specific content and processes\u201d (p. 108).<\/p>\n

Challenges to Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of challenges to the integration of video production exist with ongoing educational practice. These challenges include restrictive models of literacy in school curricula (Beavis, 2001; Burn & Parker, 2002); insufficient attention to popular culture in school curricula (Buckingham, Grahame, & Sefton-Green, 1995; Buckingham & Sefton-Green, 1994); and the lack of specific attention to media education in general, specifically in English curricula (Hart & Hicks, 2002). In addition, challenges with the tools, lack of teacher education, and time are considered obstacles to practice.<\/p>\n

As Hobbs (1998) wrote, \u201cThe practical limitations of many production activities preclude their being offered to most elementary- and secondary-school students. For example, video and multimedia production often requires more equipment, classroom time, personnel, and teacher training than is available in many schools (p. 20).\u201d Increasingly, however, tools are less and less of a problem. With inexpensive digital video cameras (e.g., Flip\u2122 digital camcorders), free and freely available editing software (e.g. Apple\u2019s iMovie and MicroSoft\u2019s MovieMaker), and nearly unlimited images and video resources available on the Internet, technology resources no longer constitute legitimate obstacles.<\/p>\n

The second obstacle frequently cited is lack of teacher education. Kirwan, Learmonth, Sayer, and Williams (2003) and Grahame and Simons (2004) reported little or no training in the area. Hart and Hicks (2002) identified an overemphasis in media teaching on activities of analysis and interpretation. Reid, Parker, and Burn (2002) emphasized the direct relation between the quality of video production by pupils and the ability of teachers to teach aspects of moving image \u201clanguage\u201d explicitly.<\/p>\n

Before teachers can be expected to use varied media and media production effectively as student learning tools in their classrooms, teacher educators need to provide teachers with opportunities to learn and think deeply about media and media production for their own purposes and find ways to support teachers\u2019 ongoing instructional needs (Miller, 2007). The future of media literacy, in fact, depends on the development of long-term, rigorous, and intellectually demanding educational work with classroom teachers (Hobbs, 1998).<\/p>\n

The third obstacle frequently cited is time. Teachers report that the process of planning, recording, and editing digital videos is too time consuming to be used in any sustained way in their practice. Reporting on research conducted with participants of two graduate summer courses on video production, Girod, Bell, and Punya (2007) wrote, \u201cRelated to the pragmatics of teaching and the pace at which most teachers work, participants appreciated the opportunity to explore digital video design in this summer experience but several only laughed when asked if they would continue to design videos during the regular school year\u201d (p. 27).<\/p>\n

Research Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of challenges constrain the integration of media literacy and media production in K-12 practice. Yet, despite high-stakes testing, pressure to meet annual yearly progress goals, and standards-driven classroom curriculums, video production can be an integral part of K-12 practice if it is understood as an instructional strategy to support content learning, not as an object of study. This study examined teacher-learners\u2019 use of video production in their K-12 classrooms and connections between students\u2019 content learning and teacher-learners\u2019 practice. The following questions guided the research:<\/p>\n