Interview with Mrs Dutton (Head of
Geography) – 24.11.16
Mrs Dutton: We found it really helpful. The assessment grid was
really interesting and made it clear what we were aiming for from the students.
Interestingly, it corresponded with some of our higher-thinking tasks to access
that but I think a lot of our more able students haven’t got there. That might
be about our practice though. Perhaps it hasn’t been as effective as it could
have been. They have found that hard; we’ve said that it’s a media link and
they’ve responded with, “This is Geography how is this related?” We’ve told
them that it’s all about using different skills and it’s all related. It was
nice to have your support as well as the Toolkit; I think we needed that to get
started.
Interviewer: What sorts of things have you tried with your
classes?
Mrs Dutton: We are thinking about diamonds and specifically
conflict diamonds which are also known as blood diamonds. We started off with a
couple of little activities: one of them was why is there a demand for diamonds
in the UK? We showed them a range of adverts and film clips relating to
diamonds and asked them to consider how diamonds were represented. The girls
really were able to access it but the boys were put off because some of the
clips were quite feminine and about women wanting diamonds for jewellery. Some
of the boys’ maturity is perhaps not at a level for them to access it. But we,
as a Geography team, quite liked having a range of things to show them and it
did generate some really good discussions from the students. The homework task
was to listen to a rap song about the blood diamond trade and the negative
aspects of that in Sierra Leone. Some of the boys liked that a bit better
although others said it wasn’t their type of music so they didn’t like it. So
obviously we aren’t quite meeting everyone’s interests. A lot of them, from
looking in their books, have picked out the key points about the negative
aspects of the diamond trade so it did go well.
We then moved on to look at different clips and sources. We
looked at Wikipedia and we looked at whether that could be described as a
reliable source compared to the BBC’s website and news reports on diamond
mining in Sierra Leone. Being able to discuss the reliability of sources is a
really good skills that has come out of that so there has been quite a range so
far and we still have more to do.
The girls are definitely really enjoying it. They really
seem to have grasped it and in today we were discussing the positive
implications of the diamond trade in Botswana and the girls were able to
identify that if they have a diamond ring in the future, they’d like it to come
from the mine in Botswana rather than Sierra Leone. The girls definitely seem
to have accessed it better.
Interviewer: How easy did you find it to adapt your teaching
practice?
Mrs Dutton: Well, in discussions you gave us loads of good
ideas and then we developed it further. I think it was really good for us to
bring in more of the literacy; in the first lesson we were talking about
‘connotations’ and that’s a word we’ve never used before. It was nice to use
it. We have had to adapt our teaching and I know that we are using my class as
the basis for this project but all of the other Geography teachers have wanted
to get involved as well so it’s ended up that all of the year 9 Geography classes
are studying this media literacy blood diamonds unit. However, because they
haven’t had the support and input, I know some of them aren’t doing as much.
They are trying to keep the lessons going in the direction they are used to.
I know for Ben and myself, we have looked over the lesson
plans and thought that we could get that done in an hour and then we have found
that we can’t. The lessons are taking a little bit longer than we had
anticipated and they are rolling over into the next.
Interviewer: What benefits do you think it has had for yourself
or the students?
Mrs Dutton: It’s definitely benefitted us because we really
like trying new things and having a go at it. We felt that we were using media
sources well before this project but through this project we have definitely
developed it at key stage three. Last week I was talking to my sixth form
students about the reliability of sources and I was able to bring in some of
the media stuff that we’ve done with key stage three. I was able to ask, ‘is
that a reliable source that you’ve got that research from and are we able to
say that this data is reliable and not biased?’ That has been really good for
us. I wouldn’t have been able to do that before.
The students have found it difficult, I won’t deny that. But
I think that they have really enjoyed it too and found it useful.
Interviewer: If this were to be rolled out whole-school, what
changes or improvements could be made?
Mrs Dutton: I think the resources are really good as they are.
The sheet explaining media literacy was helpful for the Geography teachers not
involved in the trial and who have maybe missed out on your input. It gave them
a little bit of background about why we were doing it. The A3 key concept sheet
helped explain the important topics and we were able to identify where those
topics are relevant in our schemes of work. Although, I wouldn’t say we have
covered all of them. I think as we continue with the blood diamonds unit, the
assessment grid will be really helpful. It shows us what we are asking for from
our students and we can try to stretch the more able a bit further. It was nice
to have you to support us at the beginning and I don’t think we could have got
started without a person to speak to about it and ask questions. Having a person
to lead it has been really important for us.
In terms of delivery, I think because we have really pushed
it into every single lesson, that has made it quite top-heavy on the media and I
think that staff would think that they have too much subject content to get
through. So I think possibly delivering it as an awareness of using different
media but stressing that this doesn’t have to be in every single activity you
teach. In Geography we have an awareness of using media, but some times that
easier way to teach things is the way you know. However, I would say that by
bringing in a range of sources, the lower ability students have been really
engaged and have really been able to access it. That’s been really nice.
They’ve been able to discuss the different texts and when you look in their
books they might have written things like, ‘the film is accurate because it has
a famous actor in it,’ and we can challenge that by delving deeper and
questioning those assumptions. It means that we have a little bit of an insight
into the students’ media knowledge and we can push that a bit further.
Interview with Mrs Bendell (Head of English)
– 25.11.16
Mrs Bendell: They definitely helped. The ‘Implementing Media
Literacy Across the Key Stage 3 Curriculum’ tool really helped. Although I had
a little bit of knowledge of the GCSE media curriculum, and already had a few
ideas of things I could try, it really pinpointed what kind of skills I was
working with. The questions alongside the key concepts were really useful in
explaining each area.
I looked at audience in particular but also the idea of the
format. I really wanted them to think about what they were creating. They made
film trailers using gothic conventions and we also did some storyboarding as
well. So, this sheet with the key concepts was really useful. Having three
examples for each of the key concepts at deconstruction and construction were
really useful. I could basically pick out things I wanted to do and just tweak
them to suit my subject and group.
The assessment criteria feels comfortable because it’s been
created in a very similar way to the assessment pro-formas we are used to.
Again, there are some things that are difficult to mark as a non-specialist and
in big classes it’s even more challenging. But the statements on the sheet are
very clear and I feel comfortable that I can identify them in my students’ work
so that has been a confidence boost.
Interviewer: What sorts of things have you tried with your
classes?
Mrs Bendell: Ok. So I tried two different things. I am doing a
gothic fiction unit with Year 8 and they have been reading extracts from famous
and not so famous gothic literature, deconstructing them to think about the
component parts and then building them back up to write their own. I thought it
would be an interesting angle to take where we have looked at gothic films,
trailer and opening sequences that follow the gothic conventions. It’s always
difficult with Year 8 because of the age rating of films that would consider
themselves gothic. However, I did a lesson on opening sequences where we were
focusing on the start of a story called The
Vampire’s Assistant by Darren Shan which is a sequel to the famous novel Cirque du Freak. The opening scene of
the book is very filmic so I read it and thought it could be perfect to
storyboard. We read it as a class and broke it down into its narrative
structure using Todorov’s narrative paradigm. I mentioned that it was something
that they would cover at Media Studies GCSE. We talked about camera angles and
looked at some in action, giving them the terminology and then we had a little
play around with those using the iPads. I gave them a storyboard sheet and they
produced some really good quality storyboards where they had really thought
about each part of the opening and how the camera was going to frame the shot
and how the audience were going to react. We identified a teenage audience so
that allowed them to be a bit scarier. A lot of the higher ability students were
working up to those 7-9 descriptors on the assessment grid and were starting to
consider the transitions between shots and how you can really heighten the
impact just from camera angles. The lower ability students were able to talk
about sound and music, lighting and use quite a lot of media terminology. So
even though it was new, it felt familiar because they are really used to
watching film trailers on YouTube and for some of them, it seems to be
something they do a lot of.
They have absolutely loved it. They were really happy that
we weren’t just reading a story, talking about it and then writing a PEAR
paragraph which is what I would normally get them to do. It’s that classic
English thing of let’s read a really good story, talk about what the writer has
done and then put that into an essay format. This was something more practical
and engaging where they could still demonstrate their understanding, but in a
much more interactive way. It’s important that I could still assess their
understanding of story openings but this made it seem much more tangible and
real for the students. It wasn’t a gimmick; the storyboarding activity enthused
the students whilst getting them to demonstrate their understanding of gothic
conventions and how to hook an
audience.
Another activity we did was to use the iPads to film
trailers. They got so excited about using media ideas that I thought I’d extend
it into that practical project and it seemed like a natural progression. We
took a gothic setting and character and they worked in groups to transform that
into a gothic trailer. They were excited to use the iPads; I don’ think they’d
used them much before which is a shame seeing as we have a lot of them in
school. They reacted really well and were desperate to see each other’s, and it
was the same with the storyboards. At the end of the lesson they looked around
at each other’s to give some peer assessment and were excited to see what other
people had done. There was the sense that they were excited by the work and
proud of it.
Interviewer: How easy did you find it to adapt your teaching
practice?
Mrs Bendell: It was easier than I thought actually. A lot of
teachers of English use some media tools to break up the monotony of PEAR
paragraphs and finding visual ways into a topic. I found it reasonably
straightforward to think of ideas, particularly using the Teacher’s Toolkit to
guide me. The resources helped make links between practical tasks, my learning
objectives and enhancing the students’ grasp of media concepts. It’s something
I will definitely do more often now. I’m looking forward to trying other
things.
Interviewer: What benefits do you think it has had for yourself
or the students?
Mrs Bendell: The benefits for me were that I could see them
working in a group which is important as English can be quite a solitary task.
We do group discussions but that can be hard to assess whereas this had a very
solid end product and a supporting assessment framework.
The benefits for the students were huge: there was that
chance to collaborate and I think they got a real sense of achievement because
they got to physically make something. Also, they had the feeling that this was
relevant and made links between what they like doing outside of school and the
subject content. For some of them, this sort of thing might be what they want
to go on and do in their future, in their career. They were getting very
excited about trying other things like voice overs so we might try that next.
Interviewer: If this were to be rolled out whole-school, what
changes or improvements could be made?
Mrs Bendell: The Teacher’s Toolkit could be improved if it
included some exemplar work that linked to the assessment criteria. It might
help teachers of other subjects to see what a level 7 looks like. That would
help teachers to visualise the end product.
The Implementing Media Literacy A3 sheet is great and
doesn’t need changing. I think staff would just need time to work in their
departments to use the tools and make links with their schemes of work. They
could use that sheet to pick out things they could do to enhance their current
practice but they’d need to the time to do that. Every scheme of work should
have some media elements in it.
I think the work needs to be launched to staff and explained.
Then they’d just need time in departments with your support. It’s the perfect
twilight INSET really. It would be such a lovely opportunity to discuss
teaching and learning in our departments with the Teacher’s Toolkit and your expertise
to scaffold it, and really make some tangible improvements to schemes of work. It
would be great to have the time to plan some innovative lessons and reflect on
the improvements we will see in our students as a result, rather than doing the
same old thing we’ve always done. This school describes itself as
‘outward-looking’ and ‘forward-thinking’ and this fits in with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment