Media "Essential Learnings"

The Queensland Studies Authority recently released the second draft of the " Essential Learnings" for years 3, 5, 7 and 9. These have been produced by the QCAR team (Queensland Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting). This project was partly established to address a perceived concern that parents believed the reporting framework associated with the Years 1-10 Key Learning Area (KLA), outcomes based syllabuses was too complex and didn't provide clear and plain information about their children's achievement levels. It also responded to the claim that teachers found it difficult to plan with the outcomes because there were too many listed across the eight key learning areas.

The response has been the development of "Essential Learnings" (ELs) that are to be gained by all students and measured with an A-E rating at years 3, 5 , 7, and 9. The "ELs" for media read as follows:

Ways of Working

Students are able to:
• develop, analyse and evaluate ideas for arts works by considering style, function and purpose of arts works and exploring arts elements
• create arts works by adapting and modifying arts elements and using genre-specific techniques to shape and communicate meaning
• perform, present and/or display arts works using genre-specific techniques to communicate meaning to a range of audiences
• reflect on and critically examine arts elements, how meanings of arts works can change and the use of representations in own and others’ arts works.

Knowledge and Understanding

Students understand that elements of Dance, Drama, Media, Music and/or Visual Arts and their conventions are manipulated and shaped by artists to create arts works and communicate meaning.

• in Media, techniques specific to genres (e.g. news reports, advertisements) and special effects are used to create media texts

Students understand that The Arts is a way of thinking and expressing artistic ideas, and that arts practice involves traditional and contemporary practices, skills and procedures.

• Media involves using contemporary technologies and adopting production roles to capture, edit and mix elements to create media texts

Within these ELs the statements from lower levels are also assumed to be embedded, so the ELs should not be read in isolation from the ELs at lower levels.

The main concern I have about the draft for media is the lack of thought given to new forms of media. The reference to "special effects" seems especially out of place, when a reference to new media techniques would seem much more reflective of contemporary culture. Also, it is clear that to be effective, teachers will need to dive back into the 1-10 syllabus document and support materials to find resources to address these ELs.

In addition, these statements do little to highlight the key concepts of audiences, representations or institutions. While these three areas can be read into the statements, they are essential enough to what we do in media education that they should be clearly visible.

The other issue is that the ELs seem to have been made non-mandatory in the most recent draft, with an and/or between each of the Arts forms. It raises the question of when an "essential learning" is not essential!