These suggestions are designed to support the management of media studies programmes.
Develop systems for issuing equipment, loaning material, and storing student material, for example, have a scrapbook for each student to keep their production log.
Set up manageable times for students to use equipment outside class hours.
Ensure the department has practices to ensure the ethical use of material by teachers and students. Consider issues such as censorship ratings, privacy, piracy, copyright, and ethical procedures.
Ensure the school has obtained appropriate licences to allow students to use materials and software, for example, screenrights licences.
Develop systems for keeping tasks, assessment schedules, and student exemplar materials for moderation.
Use previously moderated student work for assessment schedules.
Work with other media studies teachers to plan, moderate assessment material, and share ideas and resources.
Plan for gathering evidence of individual contribution to group work in a practical situation, for example, using written or online logs, voice recordings, video logs, and recordings of teacher observation and conferencing.
Find out what your students know and enjoy about the media. Find out their skills and experiences.
At the start of the year, make sure students have opportunities to learn the key concepts and the language and vocabulary of media studies. Return to these often and make links to them across subsequent units of work.
Ensure the students understand the course structure, achievement standards, and school procedures for NCEA.
Create opportunities for students to use the equipment early on, using a digital voice recorder to record vox-pop interviews with their classmates about why they chose media studies.
Establish routines with equipment and material that encourage student responsibility, for example, students signing out the camera are responsible for returning their tapes to a box and putting the battery on a charger.
Let your students know about media opportunities, including competitions, places to access information about the media, and local activities.
Last updated September 14, 2011