Professional Context:
Tilton STEM is a K-8 school located on the West side of Chicago. Tilton STEM is a neighborhood school with approximately 350 students. Our school has a lab dedicated to STEM, and I teach or facilitate in the lab. The curriculum I teach is focused on STEM and encourages students to use the engineering design process. The students are accompanied by their teacher during their time in the lab. Students in grades 6th through 8th attend two STEM lab session each week that run during the afternoon. I work with teachers in their homerooms during morning classes. I assist teachers with implementing technology and STEM practices into the teacher's lessons.
Big Idea:
We are living in an information based society that has resulted in the availability of new technology for use by students and teachers. One example, is the use of video. Student created video is an ideal technology for encouraging investigative and creative behavior. The opportunity to give oneself completely to a task and become fully absorbed in it helps fill that creative need for self-expression all students have. Also, the video camera is an ideal tool for disseminating information and teaching content. Video has the ability to produce immediate results and feedback, and catch the viewer's attention in an instant. My goal is to see video become an integral part of the classroom curriculum. Since there are no prerequisite skills to film making, it is appropriate for all age levels and skill levels. Storytelling practices and critical thinking skills can be developed through the use of video, along with learning the technical side of using the tools to produce a film. Video can provide students with an increasing array of choices for producing stories and collaborating on diverse subjects.
The classroom needs to be a cooperative workplace where teacher and students build the learning process on mutual planning based on their experiences, abilities, and needs. In short, students should be involved in determining what they learn. As part of the curriculum, video production adds more life to basic classroom studies. It is not meant to replace, but to add excitement to classroom lessons. If students have a vision and can see it in their mind's eye, the eye of the camera can record it and communicate it to others. When students speak the language of film, their thoughts and words begin to take shape and become powerful images of light, color, sounds, music that create meaning of the world as they see it.
Video production can also expose students to a wide variety of social and academic skills. The writing and filming of student's ideas will provide opportunities for students to cultivate and develop their natural creative talents. The process begins with the inception of an idea. That idea undergoes various forms of verbal and visual change and finally, it is synthesized and made real in the form of film. Throughout the year, I will have students work in groups as they collect, analyze, and synthesize information covered in class. The group then presents their final project to the class. For the purposes of this project, each group of students will be called a production team, and the final project will be a video production.
Content:
This will be a year long project that will begin shortly after school has started and classroom routines have been established. Students will work during class and before or after school on their videos. The content of the student work will depend on the classroom teacher, but they content can be wide ranging and emphasis will be on the storytelling and how their stories are told visually. Although the content of the film will depend on the units of study that are going on in the classrooms, I am going to encourage students be involved in the curricular decision-making process and learn to take responsibility for their own learning.
Much of the knowledge students absorb is best acquired when they explore and actively construct their vision of what is real, rather than passively learning about it. Therefore, students will benefit because of the active involvement that is required. I will focus on story development, guiding students with the structure of the film and how they want to create their story. Also, the constructs of the student-created video allow for the student to make many of the decisions related to the production. Students will have to consider the cast, location, shot list, and how they want their films designed. Video production allows students to become writers and actors, thus developing their creativity. Students can develop and enhance many skills during the process including , problem solving, creativity, abstract thought, social skills, tolerance and self-control as they engage in dramatics.
The nature of this project requires that students work in small groups. Therefore, a cooperative learning model will be used to determine the guidelines for the activities, learning environment and student evaluation. Each student in the group is responsible for a different aspect of the video. The success of the entire project directly relates to the performance of each individual. Roles and responsibilities will be defined and created with input from the teacher and student groups. Students will be informally evaluated by their peers and teacher. Conversations and student observations during video production can provide the necessary information for the teacher to form reliable evaluations. Specific feedback can be collected by having students complete a self-evaluation form. The information, provided from the student's perspective, can be used to make improvements in the structure, activities, and content of the unit of study.
Tilton STEM is a K-8 school located on the West side of Chicago. Tilton STEM is a neighborhood school with approximately 350 students. Our school has a lab dedicated to STEM, and I teach or facilitate in the lab. The curriculum I teach is focused on STEM and encourages students to use the engineering design process. The students are accompanied by their teacher during their time in the lab. Students in grades 6th through 8th attend two STEM lab session each week that run during the afternoon. I work with teachers in their homerooms during morning classes. I assist teachers with implementing technology and STEM practices into the teacher's lessons.
Big Idea:
We are living in an information based society that has resulted in the availability of new technology for use by students and teachers. One example, is the use of video. Student created video is an ideal technology for encouraging investigative and creative behavior. The opportunity to give oneself completely to a task and become fully absorbed in it helps fill that creative need for self-expression all students have. Also, the video camera is an ideal tool for disseminating information and teaching content. Video has the ability to produce immediate results and feedback, and catch the viewer's attention in an instant. My goal is to see video become an integral part of the classroom curriculum. Since there are no prerequisite skills to film making, it is appropriate for all age levels and skill levels. Storytelling practices and critical thinking skills can be developed through the use of video, along with learning the technical side of using the tools to produce a film. Video can provide students with an increasing array of choices for producing stories and collaborating on diverse subjects.
The classroom needs to be a cooperative workplace where teacher and students build the learning process on mutual planning based on their experiences, abilities, and needs. In short, students should be involved in determining what they learn. As part of the curriculum, video production adds more life to basic classroom studies. It is not meant to replace, but to add excitement to classroom lessons. If students have a vision and can see it in their mind's eye, the eye of the camera can record it and communicate it to others. When students speak the language of film, their thoughts and words begin to take shape and become powerful images of light, color, sounds, music that create meaning of the world as they see it.
Video production can also expose students to a wide variety of social and academic skills. The writing and filming of student's ideas will provide opportunities for students to cultivate and develop their natural creative talents. The process begins with the inception of an idea. That idea undergoes various forms of verbal and visual change and finally, it is synthesized and made real in the form of film. Throughout the year, I will have students work in groups as they collect, analyze, and synthesize information covered in class. The group then presents their final project to the class. For the purposes of this project, each group of students will be called a production team, and the final project will be a video production.
Content:
This will be a year long project that will begin shortly after school has started and classroom routines have been established. Students will work during class and before or after school on their videos. The content of the student work will depend on the classroom teacher, but they content can be wide ranging and emphasis will be on the storytelling and how their stories are told visually. Although the content of the film will depend on the units of study that are going on in the classrooms, I am going to encourage students be involved in the curricular decision-making process and learn to take responsibility for their own learning.
Much of the knowledge students absorb is best acquired when they explore and actively construct their vision of what is real, rather than passively learning about it. Therefore, students will benefit because of the active involvement that is required. I will focus on story development, guiding students with the structure of the film and how they want to create their story. Also, the constructs of the student-created video allow for the student to make many of the decisions related to the production. Students will have to consider the cast, location, shot list, and how they want their films designed. Video production allows students to become writers and actors, thus developing their creativity. Students can develop and enhance many skills during the process including , problem solving, creativity, abstract thought, social skills, tolerance and self-control as they engage in dramatics.
The nature of this project requires that students work in small groups. Therefore, a cooperative learning model will be used to determine the guidelines for the activities, learning environment and student evaluation. Each student in the group is responsible for a different aspect of the video. The success of the entire project directly relates to the performance of each individual. Roles and responsibilities will be defined and created with input from the teacher and student groups. Students will be informally evaluated by their peers and teacher. Conversations and student observations during video production can provide the necessary information for the teacher to form reliable evaluations. Specific feedback can be collected by having students complete a self-evaluation form. The information, provided from the student's perspective, can be used to make improvements in the structure, activities, and content of the unit of study.
