Video and Teaching

Who cares? Teachers care.
Videotaped films are now widely available for inexpensive rental or purchase making them an accessible resource for classroom use. Before the 1980s, instructors could get films only through audiovisual centers, educational film sources, film distributors, and private organizations. The rental process was slow, cumbersome, and expensive, reducing film’s accessibility as a resource (Smith, 1973). Films now available from a video store include contemporary films, classical films, foreign film, documentaries, and some television series. About 22,000 such films are available on videotape, laserdisc, and Digital Video Disc (Connors & Craddock, 1998; Maltin, 1998;Martin & Porter, 1998)

Since the 1970s, educators experienced in using as a teaching tool have urged its adoption by others (Culkin, 1970; Maynard, 1969, 1971, 1977). Wegner (1077) was a pioneer in using this medium. His 1977 pamphlet described various film types and how to use them in the classroom. Many others have reported successfully using films in teaching a broad range of disciplines or topics, such as political science, American Studies, French, group dynamics, science, and anthropology (Bloom, 1995; Dubeck, 1990; Michaud, 1997; O’Meara1976; Ruby, 1976; Sanchez, 1976) [Champoux, Joseph E. “Film as a teaching resource”   journal of Management Inquiry 1999 8920:240-251]

Why does it important?

Film scenes can offer a visual portrayal of abstract theories and concepts taught in organizational behavior and management courses. Inexperienced students will likely benefit from the use of film because of a greater feeling of reality. Showing concepts through different film scenes also shows the application of these concepts in different situations. [Champoux, Joseph E. “Film as a teaching resource”   journal of Management Inquiry 1999 8920:240-251

Diverse and foreign films provide students with a powerful, visual global perspective. While this may sound obvious, film’s...