We've all heard the conversation before. A parent asks, "What did you do at school today?" and the student replies, "Nothing."
At Gunston Middle School in Arlington, Virginia, students have changed that answer to "I brought home a video of my social studies class. Let me show you."
The HomeVisions Program
Almost every family in our school has a television and a VCR in the home or has easy access to TV technologies. In fact, most families spend more time watching television than talking about school with their children. Our goal is to use this interest in television to increase the information that families receive about school. We want families to watch and talk about television shows starring their own children and our school staff. Short videos produced at school provide an entertaining stimulus for productive conversations at home.
More than 200 videos, produced primarily by students, have circulated to families since the HomeVisions Program began during the 1997–98 school year. These videos show students and teachers in action—an opportunity rarely afforded to parents who work during the day. Videos include valuable information: how parents can help their child succeed in school, what materials to purchase for projects, and descriptions of special programs and curricular units. The old information sheets and flyers simply cannot compete with these new videos.
Bringing Science Projects Home
One example from our program is the video "How to Help Your Child with the Science Research Investigations Project." This video addresses an 8th grade science activity that requires substantial homework. During the 1996–97 school year, 27 out of 70 students failed the Science Research Investigations project because these students did not turn in a finished project. Even with assistance—Saturday Science Days, after-school sessions, parent information sheets, and calendars—students had trouble completing science projects and the accompanying research papers.
To improve student performance, the science teacher, Yvette Sy, and video journalism teachers and their students made a 12-minute video describing the project requirements and demonstrating specific ways that families could assist students. The project involved writing a script created from old parent information sheets, rehearsing the script with student actors, videotaping the teacher and sample projects, making titles on the computer with PowerPoint, and editing the show. The production took 10 after-school hours to complete. All students were required to watch the video with their family.
The video had a significant impact on student success. Only 3 out of 68 students failed to turn in a finished project during the 1997–98 school year. Although this improvement may not be solely attributed to the video, surveys indicate that both students and parents felt the video was a great help.
Families also told us that the video was fun; they watched it several times. Repeated viewing helped families learn the vocabulary associated with the project and remember the requirements and procedures for helping their child. The science teacher received a dramatic increase in parent calls requesting additional information. When parents spoke to the teacher, they could use the vocabulary from the project and identify clearly how their children needed assistance. The teacher felt that she was really working with the parents. In addition, throughout the year, parents were more likely to sit next to the science teacher at conferences and approach her with questions. This familiarity and comfort between parents and the teacher is another benefit from the video.
Video Production
Gunston now has more than 50 different programs in the HomeVisions video library. All students, teachers, and administrators appear in the videos. We include administrators engaged with students in each video to ensure that families would see administrators outside of the typical parent meetings and school events.
Students can initiate programs, such as "Worm Dissection with Ms. Walter's Class," or school staff can create them, such as the "Elective Program Description." Topics generally fall into one of four categories: program descriptions, extracurricular activities, curriculum descriptions and demonstrations, and descriptions of how parents can help students succeed in school. Knowing which category a video will fit into helps clarify and simplify the script.
- Student actors describe each part of the project with examples.
- Classroom teachers invite families to call with questions and explain grading procedures.
- Examples of completed projects flash on the screen during a musical interlude.
- Students and staff write one-sentence reactions to the project.
- The video shows specific examples of what parents can do at home.
The shorter the script, the better. Our most popular videos are from 5 to 12 minutes long.
The videos circulate to families either through classroom teachers or through HomeVisions, our video-lending library for families. Classroom teachers organize a rotating system for students to take the videos home, or parents can request a video through our monthly newsletter, HomeVisions. Parents are encouraged to provide feedback or ask questions on a comment card inserted in the video case. Generally, parents can keep a video overnight when that video needs to circulate to the entire class. They can keep other videos for one week at a time.
Our teachers continue to experiment with new applications. One example involves periodically taping a class during regular lessons, field trips, and project presentations. Each new activity is added to the tape, and then the tape circulates to families. At the end of the year, when parents and students view the tape from beginning to end, they see students literally grow before their eyes.
Videos are also used to kick off evening meetings. During school events, they play continuously on TVs placed in hallways to showcase school activities and to give parents information. Other videos help substitute teachers and new students learn about classroom procedures. Some of our shows are even broadcast on a local cable channel dedicated to the county's schools. Every day we find new uses for our video programs.
Many students at our school speak a language other than English in the home. To address this, we thought that we could translate videos into different languages, such as Spanish. Surprisingly, we have encountered several problems. Two main difficulties are keeping the picture coordinated with the sound and finding a native speaker who can be easily understood on video. To help solve the second problem, we rely on the pictures to communicate our messages and add simple graphics or narration that students can easily translate for parents. We are always trying new ways to increase the effectiveness of our communication. This year we will add subtitles in different languages to portions of the videos that convey crucial information.
High Standards, Low Costs
The greatest benefit is the joy that students and staff experience as they collaborate on each production. Gunston offers an elective course in video journalism that has been helpful in developing student skills and stimulating video programs. Video production is not considered an extracurricular activity because it develops essential skills outlined in our state's standards of learning. Students are involved in analytical thinking, script writing, performing, editing, proofreading, and using computer and television technologies in purposeful ways. In interviews, students must grasp and articulate the goal of school activities and describe what they are learning. What started as a vehicle for effective communication with families has developed into an exciting way to promote academic skills and to motivate students to learn. It's hard to imagine more benefits—but the videos are economical, too.
The cost of the project is realistic for most schools. Videos are generally made with regular VHS camcorders and either a simple VCR-to-VCR editing system or the AVID Cinema card on a Macintosh computer. We even edit many videos in the camcorder as we shoot. The videotapes are also affordable, purchased in bulk for about 70 cents each.
The major cost is time. Videos are put together before, during, and after school throughout the year. As students and staff develop new skills, they are inspired to try complicated editing techniques—which can take more than one hour for every minute of video. Because of the time cost, we have learned to keep editing to a minimum.
Effective Communications
School personnel often need help communicating effectively with parents. As computer technologies advance, many schools are using Web pages and e-mail to increase communications. But in schools like ours, few families have easy access to computers. Newsletters and Web pages are helpful, particularly when translated into different languages for families whose primary language is not English, but sometimes families also need to see examples and hear the teacher say, "I want you to call me with questions." Meetings, too, are effective, but meeting times and dates are sometimes inconvenient for busy parents.
Videotapes transcend many of these time, economic, and language barriers. Indeed, at Gunston Middle School, we've found that a video is sometimes worth more than a thousand sheets of paper.
