I think that media often gets a bad wrap, it seems to be a easy target for blame - for that reason, when I hear the word media I think of all the negatives that I hear about it. Reading through the standards with this new idea in mind, thinking of ways it could be used in my classroom to reiterate what I am teaching, I was very excited. Media can be used to teach every single one of the standards if you are trying to. Combining that with the core principals could be a little more easy, actually. Because we are living in such a tech-heavy world, teaching through media could very well be the best way to reach our students.
I remember in my English classroom in high school, my teacher had a blog that she used to post our assignments on and any reminders she had for us. It also had an option to email her and she would receive that email on her phone the minute you sent it. This use of media gave us the ability to ask any questions we had regarding assignments we were working on. She taught using media in her classroom as well, always having some sort of visual aid to help teach what she was lecturing on so that visual learners would be able to keep up.
Another teacher I had in high-school used absolutely nothing in her classroom. No pictures, no movies, no websites, absolutely nothing. She taught from the book. She lectured and we took notes. I don't remember a single thing I learned from her class.
Being ready to teach through media, using what we will learn in this class, will let us reach more students through our teaching. Using media, and having our students use media. I think that once it is a mind-set, once we think that way when writing lesson plans and teaching, it come a lot easier.
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ReplyDeleteI totally agree that we can easily use media in our theatre classrooms to teach basically anything that we want to. I believe that theatre is moving in a very digital and media driven direction. I think that's the way the world is moving. I was also struck by the quote in Seeing and Writing 4 that said in our teaching we should “approach a range of verbal and visual texts” (736). This is so true! I work and have worked a lot with film in my life, and have every intention of using that in my theatre classroom. And no, I do not believe that I specifically need a film class to do this. We didn't have that in high school, yet we worked of about a dozen film projects in class.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about thinking creatively about how you can use what you know or love to enrich our field. I think it's also about integrating new forms of literacy that could enhance our work. I think these things will easily satisfy core requirements. In the theatre world we can think about how we can involve instillations, photography, collages, audio, or other things like that into our work and process. I don’t think media just has to be involved in our productions. I think it can be key to our developing processes, and our struggles to enhance our designs or work as actors. The National Theatre Standards certainly make way for film opportunities, screenwriting opportunities, digital presentations, and other media forms as we can blatantly see in Standards 6-8. Those are just the overt ones, not to mention ones where we use media creatively.
I think the century 21 program and goals also does a really great job of taking those standards we have and implementing making goals for specific arenas of technology, like media literacy and MANY others. I think this is a great resource because if media is not our strong suit then it has many, many different ideas for activities that will help implement media in our classroom. These compliment the goals of our national standards. I really loved the CPMLE because they really spoke to my beliefs as a teacher. The principles I was most struck by were 4 and 5, stating that media is a part of our culture and makes us more informed, functioning members of our society.
My favorite part was when it says that media education develops "informed, reflective and engaged participants essential for a democratic society." This is so true. I believe that as a theatre teacher this is absolutely my job. My job as a teacher in general. My minor is english teaching and I believe this holds true for that realm, as well. I believe in the arts because I think they can make you a better human being, and that they can strengthen your relationships with others. If I can help a student become more informed, reflected, and engaged to help contribute to a better world and a better society then I will be able to die happy.