From Life to Learning
The Audience
The video From Life to Learning is designed to be shown to first year university students in the first week of semester. Tutors will also gain insights into tutoring with skills transfer in mind.
The Educational Aim
The video aims to raise students' awareness of the skills, knowledge and abilities they bring to tertiary study from informal and formal learning environments outside of university.
An awareness of the ability to transfer skills from Life to Learning and back again will help to ensure students develop the attributes of an autonomous learner.
Viewers will be challenged to consider how the learning culture of a tertiary institution will require the refinement or modification of some skills and the learning of new capabilities.
The producers of this video have also written a booklet covering:
- Suggested ways to use the video in tutorials
- Teaching with transfer in mind
- Reading with transfer in mind: a handout for students
Although funded separately this video is part of a series.
The Structure
The 26 minute video follows three new students as they undertake a group project: Jessica, a school leaver, Tan, an overseas student, and Sally, who is returning to study as a mature-aged student. The drama is interspersed with interviews with tertiary students and academics. Graphics highlight segments of the narrative and supporting documentary addressing themes for discussion.
The Issues Covered
The drama demonstrates how different characters bring their various life skills to the project their group is working on. The students interviewed discuss learning at home, in the work place and at school and reflect on how these learning experiences relate to and have been transferred into their tertiary study. Academics talk about how there is a culture within this tertiary environment which will ask students to think and communicate in different ways to what they may be used to.
The video drama models collaborative learning and there is a central theme about the importance of being self-aware to the successful transfer of knowledge and skills to new situations.
Using the Video
The video is designed to be shown in its entirety, at one sitting, but lends itself to later being used in segments for follow-up discussion and activities that students can complete on their own. The booklet outlines the educational approach and has suggestions on how to use the video.
Sample QuickTime video clips
To illustrate the video and to give some idea of the content and design, several short clips are given below.
To view these QuickTime video clips, you will need to have QuickTime installed and have either the QuickTime plugin for your Web browser, or have an appropriate external helper application installed (such as MoviePlayer) and your browser correctly configured. To use the QuickTime plugin rather than an external helper application, you will need Netscape 2 or 3 on the Macintosh, or Netscape 3 for Windows.
To download the Quicktime extensions and plugins as well as the MoviePlayer helper application, see:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
The clips:
- Sample 1: on essays
(1.6MB) - an EMBEDDED QuickTime movie.
- Sample 2: on stereotypes (2.2MB)
- Sample 3: on everyday skills (1.2MB)
Funding
Funded by the Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching (CAUT),
National Teaching Development Grant
Producers
Project team: Lorraine Marshall, Jill Barrett, Linda Butcher
Production Company: Gripping Films, Director: Robert Bull
Video Series
This video is part of a series, the other members of which are:
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