Movies in the Classroom: Time-Filler Or Teaching Tool?

Newswise — School's out now, but the past few weeks have seen the usual ritual of end-of-year activities, like exams, field trips, ice cream parties and — watching movies in school.

New research shows that American teachers commonly use film, television and videotape materials for reasons that are not directly related to learning. In some classrooms, the use of videotape as a substitute teacher or time-filler is so common that it has become normalized by routine practice and is considered completely appropriate by instructional staff.

In an article published in the journal Learning, Media and Technology, Temple University professor Renee Hobbs used telephone interviews with teachers and classroom observations to assess the instructional practices teachers use when they play a film or television show in the classroom.

While most teachers use documentaries, TV shows, or fictional films as 'enrichment' — to enhance their coverage of subject areas, particularly language arts, social studies, history, science and geography — she found that some teachers do not have explicit instructional goals for showing a film. Others mentally disengage from the classroom while the DVD or videotape is playing.

"In some school districts, film or television is used primarily to give students a 'break' from real learning or to settle kids down when they're antsy," said Hobbs, associate professor of communication at Temple's School of Communications and Theater and director of the Media Education Lab there. "Just as parents across America use television as an electronic babysitter, it appears that many elementary and secondary school teachers sometimes do the same, making little use of the pause or rewind functions to promote active learning."

In a telephone survey of teachers who use film and television as teaching tools, 51 percent reported that the non-instructional use of media was common or very common in their school. Most respondents suggested that teachers are using media as a way to reduce the demands of their job or because they view video as entertaining and motivating to students, but not as 'serious' or deserving of the full-press intellectual effort of other teaching tools.

"Films and television programs are powerful and effective tools for learning, but teachers do not always create a learning environment that enables these tools to be maximally effective," said Hobbs.

To promote active learning through media literacy, she recommends the following: -- incorporating pre-viewing discussion; -- using note-taking as part of an 'active viewing' strategy; -- raising open-ended critical questions that involve students in analyzing the author's purpose, point of view, and methods of developing ideas through language, image and sound; and -- implementing simple media production activities that promote insight into how media messages are constructed.

"With our children growing up in a culture where most of their information and entertainment comes through the mass media, the practice of applying critical thinking to media messages is more important than ever," observed Hobbs. "But this practice may never take hold in American schools until teachers reflect on their own current uses of video and film and re-think their instructional practices to promote active learning."