Stretch and Challenge

The new OCR Media A level spec

Style of Day

•not me with a kit

•your ideas and questions, my responses and some input

•sharing and steering

blurb aims...

•perspectives and pedagogies for analytical and production skills

•holistic/manageable route

•practical activities and approaches to assessment

•inspiring models of production

Why Stretch and challenge?

•demand of new A2 courses generally

•the A* set at 92% of UMS (370/400)

•what gifted and talented students want

•so why not all students?

Villiers Park manifesto

• strong mutual student-teacher relations

• opportunities to work with the similarly motivated

• appreciation of individual learning styles

• optimised use of time

• student awareness of spec and long term objectives

• accessible up to date resources including online access for home

• work experience and networking

“a doing spec”

• encouraging reflective practice and allowing space and freedom of choice

What would you want in your ideal Media A level

course?

Can this be achieved in the new

one?

What are you most concerned about in

the new A level?

Problems with existing A level

• Too much assessment (six units)

• Insufficient practise for 2730

• Uneven tasks for 2730

• 2731 Section a lot of rote learning

• 2732 hard to maintain exam paper passages

• 2733 uneven tasks

• Pedestrian write-ups for practical

• 2734 doesn’t work as an exam

• 2735 topics rather arbitrary

• Spec overall too piecemeal

• not integrated practical/theory

How new spec attempts to address these issues• Reduced assessment burden (four units)

• Four more ‘even’ tasks for G321

• Removal of write-up from coursework

• G321 preparation through preliminary tasks

• More focussed industry study for G322

• ‘new media’ fully integrated into themes for G325

• Research encouraged for all units, though not assessed directly in exams

• Integration of theory and practical in G325

• Centre choice of content freed up

Innovation

•Use of electronic media for Research and Planning and Evaluation

•Different modes of literacy embedded

•Integration of coursework and writing in G325

Challenges•Pushing technical expertise G321 and

324

•Building an integrated model for coursework writing in G325 Section A

•New ideas to take on board G325 Section B

• Industry study G322

•TV Drama study G322

Today

•Integrated approaches to AS

•Advanced approaches to theory and practice at A2

AS Course

•Keep it simple

•All students do same option

•Do extra tasks to build skills

•Set up electronic research and planning

•Use peer assessment for AfL

•Get students to keep writing about their production work

Advice: coursework

Evaluation Questions

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

• How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ?

• Who would be the audience for your media product ?

• How did you attract/address your audience?

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ?

•Make analysing as active as possible

•Choose the industry carefully for Sect B

•Think forward to A2

Advice: Exam

Group Exercise

TV DramaSample question

Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs representations of gender using

the following:

• camera shots, movement angle, composition• editing• sound• mise-en-scene

Which industry to do and why? and

how?

Discuss the issues raised by an institution’s need to target specific audiences within a media industry you have studied

A2 course

Preparatory tasks

•CD Meme

•Britney

•storyboard/animatic/group plan/shots

•a finished version

Electronic R&P

•Blogging

Other A2 Options

Evaluation Questions

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

• What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Reflecting on Production

•How has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?

•Explain how you used conventional and/or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces

Section B

•WeMedia

•Media in the online age

•Regulation

•Collective Identity

•Global Media

•Postmodernism

Six Exampleswhere could you use them?

Examples

•Grand Theft Auto 4

•Music Video

•This is England

•Life on Mars

•Cosmopolitan or another magazine

•Last FM.com

Stretch and Challenge

The new OCR Media A level spec