31.8: A Story of Studio-Based Instruction

The story of studio-based instruction (SBI) was introduced at the beginning of this chapter. In this section, we’ll place that story within the framework. SBI requires teachers to think differently about course structures. In other online graduate courses, I had simply taken the number of weeks available, subtracted two for start-up and conclusion, and plotted the topics to be covered over the remaining 11 weeks of a 13-week semester. In my previous online courses, I situated three activities, each increasingly complex, over the 13 weeks, and planned two synchronous class meetings for students to share their second and third assignments. Content, in the form of text lectures, was placed in the course document area, and a discussion forum was created to correspond with each lecture. Students were expected to read the content, post comments, and negotiate the assignments. I designed a format for the content lectures, so students could expect to see the same pattern presented each week. This approach received excellent reviews. The format included sections for my presentation of content, student tasks, suggested resources, and a to-do list. However, I also received criticism because the course was so tightly designed, and the activities were so varied that students felt they had covered the content broadly but not deeply.

Criticism from my previous courses, about breadth rather than depth, informed my decision to try SBI. While I still had the 13-week semester as a constraint, I decided that Inquiry Into Digital Filmmaking—EDER 675.15 was not going to be a sampler of filmmaking techniques; rather, it would be an inquiry into the potential of digital filmmaking in research techniques, content development, DVD production, and digital literacy. At the graduate level, the course could not be a how-to workshop for filmmaking, so students needed the opportunity to either (1) demonstrate their existing skills and prior knowledge through digital filmmaking, or (2) gain those skills quickly enough to begin to use them in the course. As digital filmmaking and editing were relatively new, I also did not want to penalize students who did not have regular access to editing software or digital video cameras. Therefore, I needed to create a variety of tasks such as creation of simple films, development of DVDs or completion of research papers on related topics.

Mindful of the need to design a learning environment that supported a rich understanding of the potential of film, while allowing students to gain a deeper experience, I turned to SBI, breaking the course into three required components. The first component was designed according to adult learning principles. It asked students to provide evidence of 30 hours of concentrated inquiry into the knowledge and skills of basic filmmaking, asking them to either attend a workshop on digital filmmaking, or work through the textbook The Director in the Classroom, or explain how their previous experience was equivalent to the 30 hours of inquiry into digital filmmaking. To demonstrate their understanding of Component 1, students had to share their one-minute video described in the ice-breaker activity in the Studio Story section of this chapter. It was suggested that students complete Component 1 within the first four weeks of the semester.

Component 2 consisted of four modules of which students were to select two. A few students negotiated for the two to be merged into one larger component, and some students chose to work collaboratively. Details of the modules are available online.

Component 3 required students to participate in the online discussion forum in Blackboard throughout the semester. Because the students would be working asynchronously on their projects for the various components, I felt the discussion forum would create a space for the development of a community where we could come together and discuss the various modules. This would allow students who were not doing a particular module to begin to understand what it was generally about and engage in conversation related to it. Discussion forums introduced topics the first week and then elaborated on them in the second. The final week was an online film festival, with invited guests offering their criticism and suggestions.

Essential to SBI was the notion of a class critique, or crit. The crit provides an opportunity for sharing, feedback, constructive criticism, and interaction. Crits help build community and social interaction, and the concept of the crit, as well as roles and responsibilities, was clearly laid out before the first one occurred at the end of Component 1.

My role was to design the learning environment, including the content for the modules and the tasks for each of the three components, and to support subsequent learning. Immediately, students had to take an active role, negotiating their learning and deciding which modules to complete. Many found this challenging, as it was beyond their previous experiences with online learning. Only two students had ever taken a studio-based course before. These two students quickly became class leaders. SBI learning allowed the students to work independently and asynchronously. I supported them via regular email, and they connected with their classmates through the forum during the week. I arranged for two synchronous, Elluminate Live! sessions, one early in the semester to clarify course expectations, and one later in the semester to share final assignments for Component 2.

The course design was an absolute success. Course evaluations were glowing. Students were appreciative of the chance to experience an instructional module different from more typical facilitated or blended instruction. As well, the content of both the written work and the digital videos was excellent. The course did require technical support, as those students working in the Windows environment struggled to edit their videos and export their final products to QuickTime format. The Macintosh users had a much easier time using proprietary software available only for that platform. Fortunately, bandwidth was not a concern, and the three students who created DVDs as part of their Component 2 option had to mail actual DVDs of their work, as the file sizes were too large regardless of their locations.

I would offer this course again, using the SBI approach. However, I did learn two major lessons. The first was that students found it hard to adjust to the radical changes in course design inherent in SBI. They were initially reluctant to be proactive and negotiate tasks. In subsequent discussions about the course, a number of the students suggested that their initial concerns were exacerbated by being online and not having the initial trust that they could make the course work for them. Further, they stated that they were not sure if they could communicate openly and freely with an instructor they didn’t know, suggesting they would have known be better if we had met face-to-face first. Therefore, it will be incumbent on me to consider an additional icebreaker, in advance of Component 1, to begin the process of community building in the hopes of supporting greater risk-taking sooner in the limited time available.

The second lesson I learned was the need to stay with a proven pattern for content presentation. Instead of using the format I had developed for text lectures, I shifted to a series of hyperlinked web files. That format confused the students, did not create a pattern for content expectations across the modules, and added an unnecessary level of complexity. Consequently, I will need to revise the content portion of the synchronous modules to address this shortcoming. The greatest irony in this is that one of my colleagues used my hyperlinked Web file format in a course that one of my filmmaking students had taken, and the student suggested I might want to try my colleague’s format as it was so effective!

Studio-based instruction is at one end of our continuum, as it is the greatest departure from the original correspondence-based distance education. It requires active learning on the part of the students, and it forces teachers into the role of facilitators. It requires innovation and flexibility on the part of educators, as well as a rich understanding of media and software to support an authentic crit process. Further, because the curriculum is negotiated, and therefore student-centred, self-paced, and individualized, it requires a great deal of subject-matter expertise from course facilitators. There are no answer keys or computer-marked quizzes in this format!