Reading Reflection: Different Instructional Methods

Reading Reflection
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Reading Reflection
The course has been quite enlightening about the different instructional methods. From the classroom activities to specific research articles, I have learned how to use diverse instructional strategies to appeal to various cognitive senses. Of all the instructional strategies, the film has come across as one of the most effective strategies besides the use of pictures and photographs. The article by William B. Russell III entitles “The Art of Teaching Social Studies with Film” provides further insights on how film enhances the understanding of learners. Similarly, the article by Jeremy D. Stottard and Alan S. Marcus entitled “More Than “Showing What Happened”: Exploring the Potential of Teaching History with Film” also explores the various ways that film can be used to teach theoretical subjects like history.
The effectiveness of film as an instructional method draws from its ability to appeal to multiple cognitive tools. According to Russell III (2012), films help stimulate a viewer’s senses and provide images of both social and historical topics that are absent in textbooks. Films border in the entertainment aspect, and when learners are taught using the approach, they perceive learning as a form of entertainment and enjoy it. On the contrary, books are not a form of entertainment, and thus learners may not be quite receptive to using books to learn. The lack of interest in using books makes it difficult for learners to understand teachings from books. Stottard and Marcus (2010) affirm the effectiveness of education using films in his assessment of whether cinema should be viewed in high school. One of the sources he utilized in the study noted that participants could provide more examples of the film compared to examples in text-based historical sources. Another source indicated that the learners tended to...