Curriculum Alignment
The music video project is aligned with Years 7-8 Victorian Curriculum: Media Arts, addressing the four key content descriptors. Students explore the ways that music videos are used to communicate ideas & perspectives across cultures both now and in the past - with attention drawn to creations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. (VC2AMA8E01 & VC2AMA8E02) Students then analyse the techniques employed by visual and musical forms to elicit emotional responses from their audience. Such analysis is then progressed so that students can formulate their own representations. (VC2AMA8D01 & VC2AMA8D02) Guided through the production process via teacher example, students then engage with digital tools to realise their brainstorming and enactments into the form of a music video. Students are encouraged to reflect on their works in progress to understand meaning making via the form of music videos. (VC2AMA8C01 & VC2AMA8C02) Students will then take turns to screen their music videos to the class, followed by a short oral presentation where they’ll elaborate on why they made certain creative decisions, demonstrating their considerations of genre, audience engagement and context. (VC2AMA8P01)
The Resource
The music video resource is designed to inspire students and demonstrate the possibilities for their own creative work, providing a clear vision of what their music videos could become. Students will be guided through the production process using the step-by-step visual breakdown resource, making the otherwise invisible creative process explicit. The resource serves both as an introduction to task processes and an ongoing reference point, supporting students as they develop their own work. As an inclusive practice, the resources support diverse learners by showing them a clear, explicit, visually represented process that they can mirror, as opposed to abstract verbal instructions.
Pedagogy
This learning sequence has been influenced by a mix of critical & dialogic, democratic and constructivist pedagogical approaches.
Paulo Freire’s (1970) critical pedagogy states that education should move beyond the passive transmission of knowledge, instead students should be empowered as active participants to develop their own critical consciousness. As a class, this will be best realised through classroom-wide discussions. Moving away from standardised and tired analysis preached by the teacher, students will be positioned as contributors to the discussions. Modern research supports this approach as studies show that dialogic teaching deepens student understanding, as learners build on each other’s ideas and practice justifying their thinking and reasoning. (Alexander, 2018).
As a non-Indigenous educator, I recognise that approaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander media with care is of deep importance. As teachers, our role is to help facilitate respect among students when they engage with Indigenous media, without appropriating or oversimplifying Indigenous voices through a Western framework. This approach has been informed by Indigenous thought form Martin Nakata, who highlights the concept of the “cultural interface” as a space where Indigenous and Western knowledge systems intersect, requiring educators to critically reflect on how knowledge is constructed, framed, and taught (Nakata, 2007). Frameworks such as the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning have been consulted. In particular, this learning sequence has taken influence from aspects concerning narrative-driven learning, visual learning processes, hands-on techniques, and the use of symbols and metaphors (8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning, n.d.).
This unit has also been influenced by democratic pedagogy, specifically in regard to shared decision making undertaken in group work. The music video project calls upon students to exercise their responsibilities among peers during the production process. Within their groups they will select music, dedicate roles to group members and negotiate a creative direction. John Dewey argues in Democracy and Education that learning is fundamentally a social and participatory process, where students develop understanding through active engagement in shared, meaningful experiences (Dewey, 1916). Recent academia suggests that democratic learning environments enhance student motivation and ownership, particularly in creative discipline where agency is central to meaning-making (Biesta, 2015).
This unit also draws upon constructivist theory, particularly Lev Vygotsky’s emphasis on learning through social interaction and scaffolding. Working in groups, students operate within their Zone of Proximal Development, which refers to the gap between what a learner can achieve alone, and what they can achieve with guidance from a more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky, 1978). In this unit, the teacher and the students' peers aid each other and provide this support. Scaffolding support allows students to enter into complex creative technical processes that would otherwise be beyond their capabilities.
Importantly, these pedagogical approaches are enacted through the DET High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS).
References
Alexander, R. (2018). Developing dialogic teaching: Genesis, process, trial. Research Papers in Education, 33(5), 561–598. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02671522.2018.1481140
8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning. (n.d.). 8 Aboriginal ways of learning. https://www.8ways.online
Martin Nakata. (2007). Disciplining the savages, savaging the disciplines. Aboriginal Studies Press.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. Macmillan.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2015). What is education for? On good education, teacher judgement, and educational professionalism. European Journal of Education, 50(1), 75–87. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejed.12109
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.