Editing Myself: using Video Production and editing to help pupils reflect on their classroom behavior

by Carlo Roberts

Background

Year 8 pupils in a Learning Support Unit in a secondary school in Waltham Forest, east London.

Focus on

Specific intervention using DV in helping pupils reflect on their behavior. Video project involved clandestine filming of classroom behavior, with pupils involved in editing this footage of themselves later into short pieces of film.

Summary

• Using digital video enabled a group of challenging pupils to reflect on their behavior and the factors determining it.
• Pupils chose sequences and incidents for inclusion in the film, in some cases being confronted with their own behavior.
• Pupils' analysed the classroom behavior caught on film using psychological models.
• The 'affordance' of Digital Video lay in the speed of editing material together, the ability to review and revise edited sequences.
• Pupils were interviewed before and after the project about their perceptions of what 'causes' their disruptive behavior. After the project the 'locus of control' had shifted; they were more willing to take responsibility for themselves
• The impact of using video is in its role as objective mirror of pupil behavior.