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INTO FILM AND BFI ANNOUNCE NEW ONLINE COURSE, ‘TEACHING LITERACY THROUGH FILM’
Educators Invited to Sign up for Free Training as Studies Show Engagement with Film Boosts Literacy
Studies show that film incorporated into the curriculum can help to significantly improve literacy. Most recently the ‘Leeds Partnership Project: Improving Literacy Through Film (2014/15)’ recorded a 96% improvement in average points' progress in reading, and a 60% improvement in average points' progress in writing, in pupils regularly engaged with film watching and filmmaking. Now, teachers throughout the UK can learn tried and tested strategies for using film to raise literacy attainment in a new, free online course – Teaching Literacy Through Film running from January 25th 2016. Sign-up is now open at www.futurelearn.com.
Created by the education charity Into Film, in partnership with its main funder the BFI, the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is available on the social learning platform, FutureLearn. The MOOC is the first of its kind in teaching literacy through film. Running over four weeks, the flexible course will provide an introduction to the ways in which film and filmmaking can help to raise literacy attainment through the use of a range of teaching approaches and frameworks. It will also demonstrate how film can be used to help develop analytical and life skills of children and young people.
Participants on the course will develop a variety of techniques and strategies to enable them to confidently use film in the curriculum to raise attainment in literacy. A key aspect involves finding out how to use film as text to develop learners’ critical thinking, analytical and contextualisaton skills, with an introduction to the key concepts of colour, character, camera, story, setting and sound – the 3Cs and 3Ss – and how learners can use these to analyse and decode film and other texts. Topics to be addressed on the course include:
- How to ‘read’ film and use it for critical analysis
- How to improve story writing using film
- How to use simple filmmaking techniques to enhance learning
- How to upload your video content to YouTube
By interacting on the FutureLearn platform, which is designed to enable learning through conversation, course participants will be able to ask questions and share best practice and experiences with each other, as well as the experts leading the course.
In addition, course participants will gain access to a number of educational resources to use in their own classrooms on completion of the MOOC. These include easily downloadable PDFs, classroom-ready film clips and activities. Other resources available to learners include:
- ‘Role on the Wall’ activity PDF to support character analysis within a film
- ‘How to’ guides to simple filmmaking in the classroom
- Links out to useful, interesting and well researched resources that directly support the literacy curriculum
- A summary of 20 ways to link filmmaking to literacy
In a blended learning approach, on completing the course educators will have the opportunity to follow up with additional face to face CPD training from Into Film practitioners, enabling it to be used as part of a school’s CPD strategy. As well as expertise from Into Film, the MOOC incorporates input and evaluated methods from – among others - the BFI, the Bradford Media Literacy Group and Beta Filmworks Partnership, and will be open worldwide online enabling participants to share ideas and practice with educators across the globe.
“Evidence shows that for finding out about the world film has become the medium of choice for children and young people. The curriculum should reflect this – film should be part of what they learn and how they learn. The BFI and Into Film are working together to put film right at the heart of young people’s education and cultural experience. In developing this course we have brought together our expertise, knowledge and resources into something engaging and focused that will introduce teachers to the whole range of ways in which film can support literacy.” Mark Reid, head of BFI Education
Educators and youth leaders can register now for the Teaching Literacy Through Film MOOC at www.futurelearn.com