Leah Kirwan

Service learning in school

Filming Compassion by Janet Bremer

In all states high schools are starting to incorporate service learning as part of graduation requirements.  In the article ?Filming Compassion? is about a video production class that participates in service learning projects by creating videos for non-profit organizations.  Not only do the students learn about non-profit organizations, but the students not involved in the project also learn about them as well because they are watching the videos.  Non profit agencies had teamed up with Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy High School students to come up with great marketing tools for their agency and students gain not only a great wealth of knowledge, but they earn service learning hours towards graduation.  Some of the organizations have included inner city schools, homeless shelters and after school care facilities.  The students were put into groups of two allowing there to be seven videos made and seven different agencies.  Their grade was based on they script/storyboard layout, their editing, teamwork, pace of the video, introduction, and overall effectiveness.  This article really touches are on getting the students out in the community and educating others besides themselves and gets them to really understand the importance of service learning. 

The article really uses a lot of cooperative learning and puts a lot of responsibilities on the students.  Students are paired in groups of two and they are given the phone numbers of the organization in which they are working with and they are to contact the agency and set up filming times.  Before they could start filming they had to come up with the agencies objectives of the video and brainstorm on ideas.  The students had to go through the entire design cycle that is enforced greatly in the IB magnet school programs.  Students have to investigate their agency, plan their storyboard/script, create the video and edit the video, and then evaluate their video through peers and the organization.  This whole article incorporates all the ideals of an IB school.

Since I am not an audiovisual teacher I still can incorporate this idea in my future classes.  In my marketing coop class I could have students document their work experience.  Part of their internship would be to create a video about their place of business and how their business uses marketing to boost business.  Another idea is for them to come up with a promotional video for their work site.  The film idea can also be used in my regular marketing class.  Students could create commercials to promote a product.  I could also create an assignment where students volunteer their time at a non-profit organization and they can create a marketing film for the agency just like in the article.  By doing this students will be using the Bloom?s Taxonomy because they will be using the knowledge they have gained from the course and applying it into a video that shows they understand promotion.  The project can go even farther by them deciding how they would distribute the videos and if they would put a price on them.  The project incorporates all the marketing essentials along with getting students involved in the community which is part of the magnet school way. 

This article has been a great resource and it gets students involved in the community.  This provides them with motivation to do well in live because they are giving back something and not just taking. 

Posted at 01:00PM Jun 09, 2006 by KIRWAN, LEAH in General  |  Comments[0]