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State-of-the-art classroom facilitates use
of films to reinforce lectures, textbooks

Larry Burton
Film is gaining prominence as a teaching tool at LSUS with the opening this summer of a new state-of-the-art classroom specifically for courses that extensively use film to augment, reinforce and enrich instruction from lectures and textbooks.

The idea was impressive enough to land a $55,989 competitive grant in 2003 from the state Board of Regents Support Fund. That money financed the purchase of a high-tech projector for vividly detailed presentations of motion pictures, documentaries, Internet text/graphics and student-prepared digital films; a 10 foot-by-10 foot, ceiling-to-floor projection screen; a combination DVD-VCR unit; substantial film library; computer workstations equipped for digital editing, and assorted other equipment and supplies.

The 1,100-square-foot, Ethernet-wired classroom will be used for a wide range of elective courses that make significant use of films for instruction, including an introductory class on film theory, concepts, criticism and analysis; selected other English courses, and various courses in foreign languages (such as Spanish Cinema), political science (e.g. Politics in the Cinema), communications (The Civil War in Film) and philosophy.

The new “Multimedia Film Studies Classroom” in Bronson Hall provides an environment where film is treated as the serious teaching tool that it is, university officials said. Until now, students who’ve taken courses at LSUS where film is emphasized have typically had to either huddle around portable television/VCR carts in too-cramped rooms or strain to see and/or hear the film because the available equipment was dated.
That equipment also sometimes malfunctioned, resulting in the loss of valuable class time.

The new classroom and its bells-and-whistles technology is aimed not only at enhancing learning by current undergraduate and graduate students but attracting new students and faculty to LSUS who are interested in the engaging approach to teaching. The fact that several professors from various academic departments plan to use the classroom was likely among the main reasons the grant proposal was funded, said Dr. Diane E. Boyd, an assistant professor of English at LSUS who headed a four-member information technology committee that wrote the detailed proposal.

“It was an incredible experience to be entrusted with so much responsibility, to collaborate with others in the English Department here and see our efforts come to a positive fruition,” said Boyd, principal investigator for the grant. “The classroom provides an excellent space for students and teachers to challenge themselves to learn more about our century’s most popular art form.”

Serving with her on the committee were fellow English faculty members and co-principal investigators Dr. Dorie LaRue, professor of English; and Cleatta Morris and Lonnie McCray, both instructors of English.
Room 263 in Bronson Hall was vacant until transformed into the film studies classroom, which can accommodate up to 35 students. It once housed a campuswide computer lab that relocated a year ago to the LSUS Technology Center (formerly called the “Old Library”).

The new classroom now boasts, among other things, a $7,000 projector for sharp, large-screen showings of VHS and DVD films that the whole class can easily see. This projector is also linked to an instructor’s computer workstation and can display text, graphics and other materials from the Internet on the big screen. Another electronic presentation device can project student work, textbook examples and other still images onto the screen.

Four student computer workstations have software and drives that enable students to examine film clips or scenes from movies, produce and edit collaborative digital film projects, and research online sources. A substantial video resource library is planned, comprising mainly DVDs of noteworthy films from the 1920s to the present but also housing VHS movies, CD ROMs and books on film.

Boyd taught the first class in the new classroom this summer, an introduction to basic film analysis focusing on “coming-of-age films” such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Last Picture Show (1971), The Graduate (1967), Do the Right Thing (1989) and Reality Bites (1993).

Through the in-class screening of films as well as lectures, textbook readings and other assignments, students learned about the history, theory and cultural impact of films; cinematic techniques such as camera angles and movement, composition of scenes, lighting, transitions and effective use of music; different film genres and movements; film terms; messages conveyed in films, and other cinema-related topics.

Students kept weekly journals in which they critically investigated the films and narratives discussed. Some students digitally filmed their journal responses using the new computer equipment.

Boyd’s students were impressed by the new digs. “It’s a good use of technology that improves learning,” said Tianna Williams, a senior secondary education – French major, of Bossier City.

Boyd hopes to see teachers create new courses using the facility. Meanwhile, the Department of English is considering developing an interdisciplinary minor in film studies.

Film has become accepted in many quarters as a serious and powerful teaching tool – and not only for cinema-related courses and promoting media literacy. Rather, film is an effective medium for the presentation of content in all types of subjects, from history to the sciences to art, various studies have shown. The use of film can help clarify abstract information, build background for particular topics, generate more productive class discussions, reinforce ideas covered elsewhere in the curriculum and improve student retention.

For more than a decade, the study of film has been one of the fastest growing disciplines at American colleges and universities. Student demand has led more and more universities across the country to establish film-studies programs.

That is perhaps because the current generation of students is a video generation. Many of them learned to read with Big Bird on Sesame Street, while their view of the world has been largely shaped through visual culture.

“Students’ learning patterns have shifted from print to visual media,” Boyd said. “Film has eclipsed print media as one of the most effective ways to engage students.”

(Larry Burton is a veteran journalist who retired from The (Shreveport) Times in 2003. He is pursuing a degree in public relations at LSUS.)