Examining Student-Created Documentaries as a Mechanism for Engaging Students in Authentic Intellectual Work

Abstract

Over the last several decades, social studies educators' interest and emphasis on integrating technology into teaching has increased significantly. One promising area of inquiry focuses on the benefits of student-produced digital video. A number of researchers assert that student-produced digital videos provide a variety of benefits, including increases in student motivation and engagement, creative classroom opportunities, and opportunities for more authentic learning experiences. Fewer researchers, however, have explored student learning outcomes from documentary projects. In this article, the authors analyzed a set of student-created digital documentary projects constructed in a standards-based, 8th-grade U.S. history classroom. They holistically examined the level of authentic intellectual work evident in students' projects throughout each stage of the process. The authors found that the students demonstrated a moderate-to-significant degree of authentic intellectual work in creating their own documentary films.

Keywords:

• digital documentaries
• students' historical documentaries
• authentic intellectual work
• technology

Notes

This research was funded by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Midwest Region. This project would not have been possible without the guidance of several individuals. In particular, we thank Drs. S. G. Grant and Sharon Zuber for their intellectual contributions to our work as we integrated the research and application of social studies assessment with documentary filmmaking. We are grateful to our doctoral students, Ms. Emma Thacker and Ms. Lauren Colley, for their assistance in the data collection for this study. We also want to thank the teacher, Mr. Washburn, who invited us into his classroom and so willingly participated in the study, helping us to understand the complexities of the documentary process.