Individualizing Instruction with Homemade Filmstrips and Audiotapes

FOR many years teachers have found filmstrips useful in their classrooms. Now, through the commercial availability of "U" Film, the teacher can design and prepare his own filmstrips ; he is no longer limited to catalog listings. Accompanied by an audiotape, a homemade filmstrip can enhance both group presentations and individualized instruction ; it offers endless opportunities for enriching learning. Filmstrips provide one way to indi vidualize instruction in any class. Some classrooms have a listening center where a single student or a small group of students can use both the filmstrip and the tape without disturbing others. If a listening center is not available, one student or a group of students can assemble in a corner of the classroom and use the recorder and projector (with the volume set at "low"), while other activities continue to take place undisturbed. To design and prepare a filmstrip is very simple. First, lay out a series of frames on paper. To confirm that the series is clear, you may wish to seek editorial help from another teacher. If your filmstrip is to be accompanied by an audiotape, the script too should be de signed and edited on paper. When you are ready to prepare the filmstrip, consult the instruction booklet available in a "U" Film Kit (this kit is the product of Hud son Photographic Industries, 2 S. Buckhout St., Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y. 10533). To prepare the accompanying audiotape, it is best to use a cassette tape and re corder. Students are less likely to damage the tape when using the cassette recorder. A small bell will serve well to indicate the time for changing from one frame to the next. Experience in using these two media simultaneously will enable a teacher to program instruction for individualization. By posing questions and presenting prob lems in the frames, the teacher can evalu ate learning. The audiotape allows time for the student's reply or instructs the stu dent to stop the recorder until he has com pleted the problem. An example of just such a coordinated filmstrip and audiotape is included here. "Introduction to Logic" contains a se quence of 32 frames and a script. The article "Some Elementary Concepts of Logic/'1 appearing in a Houghton Mifflin newsletter, provided the basis from which the following filmstrip and audiotape evolved.2