Day 1:
The first part of this lesson involved a peer review of their rough cuts. The students got to watch everyone’s videos, which they were really anxious to do. They were really eager to see what everyone else had come up with. They gave some constructive criticism using one of the worksheets from the lesson to give the other groups feedback on what they could change, what they liked, what they didn’t like, things that might have confused them, and things that they thought that they could have done better.

Before this particular learning segment, the students had preplanned for their documentary. They had selected a topic they wanted to work on. They’d planned for it: their shoots, who they wanted to talk to, what they needed to ask. They came up with a list of questions and a list of shots they wanted to do. They did the shooting, and they’d done the preliminary editing before they started on what we’ve been working on for Day 1.

To start the lesson, I went over constructive criticism with the students—what exactly good feedback entails—and then I had each of the students work on their own computer to watch the video, meaning each group would have 12 sets of feedback instead of just a couple. There would be a lot more feedback and each student might catch something different. They made notes as they watched the videos and made comments about what they would like to see improved, things that might have confused them, or just general comments that they thought could be added to the video to make it a little bit better.

After each student had finished watching the documentary and made the notes on their feedback form, I led them in a group discussion about what they liked and what they didn’t like; they were free to talk about anything they might have come across in the video, any problems they might have seen, any things they really liked, something they thought could help out the group, because I find that it really helps to have a big group talking like that. The students feel more like they can open up, or maybe something someone else says prompts them to go, “Oh, yeah – well, you know, I thought about doing it this way, and this might help fix the solution,” or, “You know, I didn’t see that, but now that you mention it, I see it too, and I really think this might help.”