How do you manage a film challenge?

Inevitably, you will have many groups of students filming in many different locations around your school.  There is definitely a certain amount trust and student responsibility involved in allowing students to leave your classroom for an hour.  Here are a few important management tips to make your film challenge experience exceptional:

• Stopwatches. Equip each director with a stopwatch to monitor their time outside of your classroom.  Having a stopwatch increases the impetus for on-task behavior, ensures students will return to your room in time to check in their equipment, and instills a sense of formality that increases the quality of work.
• Build expectations. Before allowing your students to exit your classroom with equipment, make sure every student understands what behavior is expected.  This includes everything from being polite to adults they encounter on campus (since some adults may initially be alarmed at seeing students outside of a classroom), to acceptable noise levels and proper handling of equipment.
• Establish clear, consistent consequences. You may have a student or group who veers from a productive course of action, and in that case you need to be prepared to stick by a set of pre-established consequences.  It only takes one student receiving the consequence you promised in order to prevent other off-task behavior from occurring.  Students will believe you mean business and take film making seriously when you show them that you do. 
• No extensions.  Aside from technical difficulties, there is no reason to grant any sort of extension to students.  Film challenges are as much about the process as they are about the end product.  Critical thinking is exercised when students need to problem-solve and modify in order to meet their challenge deadline. 
• Be positive.  Give pep talks, step in when needed, and emphasize the importance of student choice.  For some, the challenge may feel overwhelming, so do what you do best and be a teacher who shows their students love and support in the midst of their own uncertainty.  When students pull through with a product they're proud of, they will thank you.

Students filming around campus.