When the 生产商 Becomes the Student: Creating Classroom Video

优秀的老师在课堂上磨练他们的技巧, 在学生面前和学生中间, where a positive feedback loop provides cues about how effective and engaging a lesson is. 脱离了这个背景, 在工作室或办公室里, 反馈消失了, 只有一个镜头, 或者屏幕, 或者只是一个稳定的LED灯. This is one of the hurdles teachers can face when creating instructional video—they have to imagine students and become more self-aware in the process.

这是我一直都知道的挑战, but Liam Moran is the person responsible for bringing this back to top of mind. He’s an instructional resources systems specialist at the 伊利诺伊大学, and the topic came up when we were talking for this year’s “The State of Educational Video.他提到了他的制作团队, which produces hours upon hours of videos for traditional and online courses, has learned to create this feedback loop for faculty.

“That’s the value-add that our team provides,” Moran says. “The improvement in the educational benefit of lighting and good production values is marginal compared to the benefit of having someone sitting by the camera asking questions, 确保它说得通.”

He noted that role is “the hardest thing to hire for, someone who can quickly create that relationship with faculty, who can give that feedback in a constructive and honest way.”

In my experience, that last part cannot be underestimated. 老师有自我，有感情, and the best ones are very invested in their discipline and practice. It is a vulnerable position, being yourself in front of the camera for the first time. That’s especially true when your performance at your professional specialty— teaching—is now subject to evaluation and suggestions from someone who is not necessarily a fellow teacher or supervisor.

事实上, the people from whom teachers most often receive appraisals are students, 无论是直接的还是以课程评估的形式. But students don’t usually judge lesson plans or pedagogy. Their interest is much more basic—and selfish—whether they understood, 是困惑, 或者只是无聊而已. These are the same criteria a good producer should be paying attention to.

As Moran put it, “a producer is a professional student.“理想情况下, the person leading the production and interfacing with faculty has a love of learning and relishes the opportunity to dig into new topics—whether environmental science or medieval history—in order to become a kind of instructional crash test dummy, absorbing the bumps along the road to building a better video lesson.

As a producer, you should shift into a student mindset. That means really trying to make sure you understand the content fully. It’s a task that should start in preproduction by sitting down with the instructor or subject matter expert and walking through the lesson plan or lecture notes. What are the key ideas or takeaways for each video, and how are they conveyed? 你明白了吗?

Don’t be afraid to ask for some background to bring you up to speed. You’re not being graded; you’re test-driving the instruction.

Then, during the actual shoot, it’s vital to be engaged and pay attention. This is particularly critical if there has been little or no opportunity for that preproduction prep. Don’t be afraid to pause the proceedings or slow things down in order to achieve clarity. Also, ask other members of your crew to be tuned in and give you feedback.

优秀的老师有优秀的学生才会出类拔萃. 作为一名视频制作人，做那个学生.

本文发表于2015年4月号 流媒体 as "学生教学."