Abstract

This thesis identifies and critically discusses contemporary issues in curriculum design and pedagogy in Film Education in the Further, Adult and Vocational Education sector in the UK, where 16–19-year�old students are offered a range of Creative Media and Film courses that aim to develop their knowledge of digital film making and exercise their analytical skills. Set between 2018 and 2023, a period which witnessed the introduction of the T-Level and the advent of online resources to help deliver Level 3 qualifications such as Teams and Office 365, this small-scale study examines forces and factors that act upon the educational experiences of students who have chosen to study film-based education. Through a series of student and staff interviews, observations, field notes, data analysis as well as a critical consideration of peer-reviewed, published literature in this field of study, this research tracks changes to students’ learning environment at an FE college in England before, during, and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The impact and influences of creating ‘collaboration labs’ from existing classrooms, with the intention that students from separate groups could enhance their dialogic communication skills through working together and sharing knowledge and experience are also described and examined. The research population in this study consists of a 100 16-19-year-old vocational media and ‘A’-Level film students and 5 tutors. The intervention described in this research utilises Microsoft Teams with the intention of helping students to communicate and collaborate with each other to develop deeper dialogues and further critical engagement with issues of theory and practice in Film Education.

The central argument presented in this thesis is that, in the field of curriculum design and pedagogy in Film Education, a balancing act is always and necessarily in play. The thesis highlights how existing issues and problems in Film Education have been compounded by the digital contexts in which teaching and learning currently take place. The study envisages what a good Film Education curriculum might look like in practice. It also proposes a pedagogy around which the delivery of such a curriculum might be framed. An aim of this research is to re-imagine and suggest a curriculum framework for Film Education together with the provision of online and offline spaces in which tutors can engage in conversations with each other in relation to how a good Film Education curriculum might be realised in practice in the contexts in which they work. A further aim of the study is to create context-attuned approaches to collaborative curriculum implementation in the creation of curricula which encourage students to communicate and improve their problem-finding, problem-solving, critical and creative thinking skills in collaborative and critical engagement with Film Education.

Challenging how we use digital technology in the classroom is one facet of the study. A second, is to chronicle the influence of environmental and curriculum changes through student and staff accounts of experiences of Film Education. As a large provider of arts-based courses, the staff and students in the FE college, which forms the site of this study, are in a unique position to demonstrate how the Fim Education can allow individuals to develop critical thinking skills while also cultivating the qualities of mind and character needed to survive and thrive in the Film Industry and wider creative industries.

New filming and editing technology and online learning platforms have clearly opened a host of possibilities to Film Education students and their teachers. However, it is the question of how these are used that forms the focus of this study. Findings point to the need for a Film Education curriculum and a pedagogy to support it, based upon a kaleidoscopic interplay and a closer alignment between the development of students' capacities to engage in problem and project-based learning; creative and collaborative skills development; immersive aesthetic learning environments and the use of digital devices. Findings also point to the importance of embedding in Film Education curricula (and in educational curricula) more generally, of the acquisition and development of what Aristotle identifies as different 'forms of knowledge'.