The Educational screen (c1922-c1956])

76 Educational Screen The Curriculum Clinic Three How-To-Use-Pietures Pictures WITHIN the last year or so three instructional motion pictures have been released on the subject of how to use instructional motion pictures. Using Visual Aids in Training, prcxluced by the U. S. Office of Education, was the first to be completed ; and even though I had something to do with its production, I dare try to write objectively about all three. For this is not a discussion of the comparative merits of each. Rather, it is an attempt to analyze the underlying doctrine of all three and to discuss the use that can be made of these pictures to interpret it to teachers. Using Visual Aids in Training was produced by the U. S. Ofifice of Education "to aid instructors in using visual aids more effectively. " The setting for the picture is, as you might expect, the training department of an industrial plant where one who is experienced discusses the use of visual aids in training with a beginning instructor. Specific reference is made to the use of the film The Micrometer to visualize principles of good film usage. A coordinated filmstrip, unique to O. of E. productions, is shown being used as one possible follow-up procedure. Film Tactics, a U. S. Navy Training Film, was produced to give Navy instructors a clearer understanding of how to get the most out of training films It is the story, dramatically and cinematically well told, of five instructors who used the film The Countermarch to teach that maneuver to Navy personnel. Of course, only one used the film well, but the factors contributing tc his effective use of the medium are heightened by the errors in utilization made by the other instructors. Using the Classroom Film, the most recent of these tiiree pictures, was produced by Encyclopedia Britannica F"ilms, and is aimed directly at classroom teachers. The classroom film. The Wheat Farmer, is shown in its entirety within this film, preceded and followed by a visualization of the classroom activities of an alert seventh grade social studies group under the direction of a teacher who knows how to use classroom films. In reviewing and analyzing these three pictures produced by three separate organizations, it is clearly apparent that there is divergence of opinion as to how to make an instructional motion picture, but there is surprising agreement among these visual educators as to how to use an instructional picture once it is made. The basic principles — the doctrine of use— -are practically identical in all three. There are different emphases ; tliere are three entirely dilferent kinds of groups being taught with three entirely different kinds of films ; but the principles of good film usage are the same. What are they? First, there is complete agreement that the teacher must be thoroughly familiar with the film he is going to use and that he must have a plan for using it. Richards, in the O. of E. film, states emphatically tl^at PAUL C. REED, Editor Director, Visual and Radio Education Rochester Public Schools, New York "Before you use a film, you've got to know what's in it yourself", and previewing is suggested as the best way of knowing a film's content. In the other two films, instructors are shown previewing the film before using it, and both show theiji making detailed specific plans for using the films. In all three films special eml)hasis is placed on the use of teacher manuals in pre])aring to use a film. (And incidentally all three film jiroducing groups have done a thorough job of publishing manuals for all of their instructional films.) Previc'a' and plan are the first principles. Second, prepare the student jor what he is to see. All three films develop this point. In Film Tactics, the necessity for student preparation is vividly driven home through the device of showing symbolically what is going on inside the heads of trainees when the instructor begins. The device gives meaning to the commentator's words that you must get the trainees "all squared away", that you must "prepare their minds", and that "you've got to get them ready for the film." In the O. of E. picture, Richards says that "If they know what they're looking for — -and why — they've got a inuch better chance of seeing it," and he jiroceeds to show how he prepared a group for seeing The Micrometer. The specific methods of student preparaticjn shown in the three pictures difiei, hut the principle that they must be prepared is constant. In the E. B. film, the pupils themselves play a prominent part in their own preparation through the discussion period preceding the showing of the film which gives them the opportunity of listing the questions for which they will be seeking answers. Not of least importance in this stej) is the role of the instructor in classifying and organizing the specific questions of pu])ils into general questions and problems. 1 *■ The teacher demonstrates the filr^'^lide projector — from "Using Visual Aids in Training".