Mobilizing Faculty into the Future: Using Online Technology as Teaching Tools

Scott Clarke Ph.D.
Pedagogical Statement:
I consider myself a constructivist teacher. Constructivists believe that students learn best when they are able to build
and/or revise their own understandings through first-hand experiences. Therefore, my primary objective is to stimulate
learners’ natural curiosity about a given topic.
Problem based learning (PBL) is a constructivist (Brooks and Brooks 2001) approach that I have found particularly useful
for teaching about media. Rhem (1998, 1) defines PBL as “an instructional strategy in which students confront
contextualized, ill-structured problems and strive to find meaningful solutions.” This approach encourages students
to use “raw data and primary sources” (Brooks and Brooks 2001, 102) to solve “real world” problems, typically in
small groups (Major & Palmer 2001, 4).
I recently decided to incorporate PBL into my video production course. I began the semester by introducing a realworld
problem to students: the growing need for skilled videographers in television, film, journalism, and multimedia.
Next, I solicited students’ current understandings of script writing and videography techniques (e.g., examples of
what they considered “professional” vs. “amateurish” writing and/or camera work in TV, film and online video). I also
outlined the television program development process, including the elements typically contained in a program proposal.
Subsequently, I presented students with a contextualized, ill-structured problem: I instructed them to create a news
magazine program for local cablecast. I chose a TV magazine because the format is flexible, allowing students to produce
stories in line with their own majors and interests. To promote student “ownership” of the project, I had the
class as a whole select an appropriate theme, title and style for the program.
Over the next few weeks, I taught the basics of electronic field production methods, including units on script writing,
shot framing and composition, lighting, and audio and video editing techniques. I led class discussions in which learners
critiqued actual television magazine programs and story segments in terms of production techniques, aesthetics
and creativity. Students later transferred these skills to weekly critiques of the magazine stories that they and their
classmates produced.
Students used the rest of the semester to produce the magazine program. I served as executive producer, providing
structure and guidance to the student producers. Each week, half the class worked in pairs to interview local experts,
gather location footage, write scripts and assemble their stories. The remainder of the class was in the television
studios with me, recording a finished program live. I met with the entire class once a week to provide additional
training. The following week, students who had been in the field were rotated to the studio, and vice versa.
I had students use social media to critique each other’s stories, and to learn from what their classmates were doing.
By the end of the semester, students had produced eight episodes of Black Hills Revealed, a public affairs program
that has been well received by the local community.
This project gave students first-hand experience developing each of the skill sets that hiring managers say they value
most: a) Researching questions in one’s field and developing evidence based analyses (the audience analysis and program
proposal); b) Completing a significant project before graduation that demonstrates in-depth knowledge in a major
and the acquisition of analytic, problem solving and communication skills (audience analysis, program proposal,
program scripts, interviewing skills); and c) Conducting a community based field project that connects the classroom
with real-world experiences (conducting on-camera interviews, producing stories on deadline and working in a television
studio as part of a team) (AACU 2013, 10).
Biography:
Dr. Scott H. Clarke, Associate Professor of Telecommunication, received his Ph.D. in Mass Media from Michigan State
University. His areas of expertise are media, religion and public opinion. He has over 20 years’ professional experience
in television, radio and newspapers. He has also served as an adviser to several campus media outlets. His current
research agenda includes studies in how the mass media depict religion, how religious persons use the mass media,
and how religious media function as alternative communication channels. He has presented his work at regional,
national and international conferences, and has been published in the International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
in Communication and the Journal of Media and Religion.
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