Writing for an Academic Discussion More videos into the curriculum? - revised -

Should schools incorporate more videos into the curriculum alongside traditional reading materials to enhance the learning experience?

 

 

☆Let’s Think

1.        Sarah says that videos can supplement the intellectual depth of written material by providing real-world context, visual examples, or even expert interviews that can make abstract or complicated subjects more relatable. Provide a specific example for this point. Do you have any related experience?

 

2.        Share your experience of a passive form of consumption that Tom mentions in terms of video usage in learning.

 

 

☆Hints for Points

For

1.     Seeing is believing. Geography, for instance, needs more films for students to know about the features of each region on this planet, such as landscape, climate, economic activities, and culture.

 

2.     Good movies are effective teaching materials. They attract attention of students and give them strong impact, leaving an experience in them.

 

3.     Videos and books supplement for each other. Videos facilitate understanding of the subject while books provide detailed information that videos leave out.

 

 

Against

1.     Videos have less information than books do. The information in videos has been filtered and edited. The raw data are in books.

 

2.     Overuse of videos may lower students’ reading and writing skills. Watching a video takes up time, reducing time to read and write.

 

3.     Watching a film in class is a passive activity. Students cannot freely inquire, research, and analyze matters related to the subject during the play although mind can run. It is essential to work on appropriate length and timing of video usage in curriculum, such as assigning watching a related video as homework.

 

 

☆Response for Ideas and Expression

【Thesis】I agree with Sarah that schools should incorporate more videos in the curriculum.

【Supporting Details】Videos are realia and so indispensable in classes. They contribute to motivation, engagement, and better understanding of the reading materials. They also supplement provision of some types of information that reading cannot provide. For example, they can show actual audio and visuals of battle grounds in history classes, chemical reactions that are too dangerous to demonstrate in a school lab, or a certain expression uttered in a real conversation in a foreign language class.

【Counterargument-treatment & Conclusion】 Of course, reading materials make up the core of academic learning as most of the academic information is only in books. However, videos enhance learning when they are used as supplementary materials for reading, and therefore, they should be utilized more in classes.

 (130 words)

 

【Thesis】Although I don’t deny the remarkable teaching effect of videos used in schools, I am skeptical of its total benefit in the long run.

【Supporting Details】For one thing, studies come down to accurate comprehension of the reading materials and training of critical thinking, and intensive and comprehensive reading is necessary to develop the mind of students. Videos can make it easier to understand the reading material to some degree, but they are nothing more than that. Also, as Tom is concerned, they may hamper the active learning, giving students false satisfaction that they have learned the subject well enough. For instance, watching chemistry class videos introducing each element of the periodic table may provide some general ideas about elements, but it can give little real knowledge of them that is acquired by actually experimenting on the samples and reading the related information about them. (143 words)

 

 

Write your response in 10 minutes. Show each other your responses. Write down questions or suggestions to each other’s response.

 

                                               DRAFT