Lights, Camera, Action! Using Slowmation as a Common Teaching Approach to Promote a School Learning Community

Although the notion of a “community” is commonly used in current educational literature, the term is quite old. It was first mentioned by John Dewey over 110 years ago, when he envisaged that classrooms should be organised like a community rather than simply being places for the dissemination of knowledge. Dewey's theory of “learning through experience” was based on the assumption that learning involves an interaction between psychological processes focused on the individual, and sociological processes focused on how an individual interacts with others. The example he often used in describing the interaction between psychological and sociological processes was children learning to talk in the ideal community environment of an educated family.

I believe that this educational process has two sides - one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following. Of these two sides, the psychological is the basis. The child's own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. I believe that knowledge of social conditions, of the present state of civilization, is necessary in order properly to interpret the child's powers. (Dewey, 1897, pp. 4–5)