Teaching Tools
The Teaching Tools section of this site contains a comprehensive professional development guide to assist educators, teaching artists and filmmakers in developing media arts lessons and film viewing curricula. The guide is broken into a series of articles or "tools" for creating successful curricula, including standards and grade level alignment, assessment strategies, planning and development, sample curricula and technical tutorials to review the basics of production and editing. You might follow the guide from start to finish, or select and bookmark articles and sections of particular relevance.The FilmEd. For Filmmakers section contains resources for filmmakers interested in screening their films in an educational context.
You may download a pdf version of this guide in the Lesson Library.
Introduction
This curriculum guide is a flexible tool designed to provide educators with the strategies and resources to integrate media making and media literacy into current coursework.
Curricular Alignment
Classroom teachers can use this guide to align media making programs in the classroom with both their existing curriculum and with the Common Core and state standards.
Project-Based Learning: Formative and Summative Assessment
Like other forms of project-based learning, classroom film projects work best when they combine formative and summative assessment strategies.
The Planning Process
Planning is the key to a successful media arts program. Start mapping out your strategy with a variety of tips, checklists and editable planning forms.
Media Literacy
As both consumers and creators of media, young people need to learn how it is constructed. In order to make media, they must first master the ability to analyze, evaluate and understand it.
Anatomy of a Media Arts Lesson
This series walks you through the process of making a media project, from pre-production to exhibition. Create your own program that matches the skill level and curricular goals of your classroom.
Classroom Film Projects
Explore your options for classroom film projects, from documentary to narrative to animation, with a variety of exercises and guidelines for working in a classroom setting with limited resources.
Worksheets and Handouts
The FilmEd. Curriculum Guide features a number of helpful worksheets and handouts available for download in the Lesson Exchange.
Appendices
Browse our recommended film viewing lessons to accompany your classroom filmmaking projects, and find additional glossaries through the Lesson Exchange.
Technical Tutorials
Explore these online tutorials to learn or brush up on some of the technical components (skills, tools, software, etc.) of classroom filmmaking before you begin a project with your students.