Use of Audio & Video Clips in Teaching Social Studies

in Hua Yi Secondary School (2005)

Synopsis:

• Pupils are required to do note-taking while listening to an audio clip that accompanied each powerpoint slide.
• Pupils are also required to read their textbooks and to produce a cartoon strip to explain the issues mentioned in the text.

We will share two ideas which have engaged our pupils in learning Social Studies.

1.      Teaching source-based materials

The five sources in a typical exercise would feature varied personalities such as a government official, a private citizen and a foreigner. To add a sense of realism, we invite our colleagues to read the short extracts using a tone best suited for each character and capture them as audio files. These files are placed into powerpoint slides. (Figure A)

Figure A

In class, pupils take notes after hearing each narration. They infer for main ideas, tone and purpose of each source. (Figure B). They also discuss their answers with each other using the “Think-pair-share” strategy.

Figure B

Useful tips
1. Getting a good narrator with a clear diction and pitch is essential – therefore talent spot your readers.

2.       Teaching structured essay materials

If only the materials in the textbook contain cartoon strips to help our weaker pupils understand the content better!  Towards achieving this end, group work is used to get pupils to read the relevant portions of their textbook and come up with a cartoon strip explaining the issues involved.  The best cartoon strip is then scanned into powerpoint slides and printed as handouts for pupils to use as revision notes. (Figure C). A further activity can be conducted to get pupils to include narrations into the powerpoint slides and run their presentation as a slide show.

 Figure C

Useful tips
1. Be sure that pupils map out the main points before doing their cartooning. This is to ensure that all the important details are captured.
2. Stick figures would do just fine as cartoon characters.
3. Give tips on cartooning: facial expression, bubble speech, actions and background to be included; each page should include only 4 frames and each frame to have a summary statement.

As a holiday assignment, pupils can be asked to produce a 5-10 mins video clip on a topic related to social studies.  This activity requires good teamwork to come up with a good story with relevant footages and interviews. It is also a small step in giving our pupils a taste of being movie-makers!

Useful tips
1.  Be sure that pupils know the elements of an investigative documentary: highlighting the issues involved and examining the solutions proposed in an interesting manner.
2.   Give tips on good video shooting.
3.   For the novices, simple user-friendly video-editing software such as Microsoft movie maker would do just fine. 

Social Studies Teachers:

Mrs Selina Wong, Ms Adlin Ratini
Mr Ting Pin Sing (ting_pin_sing@moe.edu.sg)