Break Something and Write About the Pieces: Episode Two 'What do we do in our classrooms?'
Dr. Barnaby Taylor
I design learning experiences that encourage collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving. Why don't Classrooms look like Coffee Shops?
Three Beginnings
What do we do in our classrooms?
Do we still do what was done to us when we were in the classroom?
How do we teach Film in 2019?
Do we show films in class? Imagine that a weekly class is three hours. Also imagine that a semester is twelve weeks. This gives our imagined class a total of 36 hours of classroom-based engagement. Let's also imagine that the average film length is 1.5 to 2.5 hours. If we show one film per week for each week of the semester then that is approximately 18 to 30 hours of classroom-based activity devoted to simply asking our imagined students to do nothing but watch films. The worst case scenario is that we are then left with approximately 6 hours across the entire semester to do everything else we might want to do in our imagined class. This is roughly 30 minutes per week. Is this when the teaching takes place?
Do we make creative students sit exams? The absurdity of the question is its own answer, especially if we are, as we are supposed to be, presumably, preparing our students for roles and careers in the creative industries. How does an exam help? In any case, what does an exam say to students in 2019? Further, how does an exam fit in an environment where collaboration and creation are the primary goals? Again, what does this say to our students? We want you to be forward-thinking and creative but we also want you to sit together/alone in a room and regurgitate information. Really? Finally, how do exams help creative students prepare for progression into postgraduate environments?