As the year continues to fly by, students began to schedule their courses for the upcoming school year in the middle of March. In preparation for scheduling, principal William Deal asked the faculty to create videos about the courses that they will be teaching. 

Teachers began to create these commercials as a way to talk about the courses in the school and help the students to gain an understanding of what the course is really about. These videos needed to not just scratch the surface of what every course entails, but go in-depth into what these courses will be about. They show the overall curriculum for that course but also show details of the work students will be expected to complete in the course. 

Faculty members were then required to think of how to make these videos. They not only thought of ideas on their own but also reached out to co-workers for help when they needed it. This allowed for the staff to work with one another and collaborate in a new and exciting way that had never been done before. These infomercials not only can share information about the courses but also share how the teachers feel about their courses and allow for the teachers to connect in a new way. 

  Most teachers completed this project on their own with just themselves in their videos. However, other teachers decided that they wanted to add their students that were in that course to speak about the class in their infomercial.  

“The tools I used to make them I’ve used many times in the past for my classes so I was comfortable with the format. These videos are intended to give students and families a better understanding of the classes offered at the high school,” history teacher Nathaniel Langelli said. 

While these videos were a way to get people talking about the differing types of courses in the school, for some of the classes, teachers can use these videos to recruit more people into classes and allow students to really know what it is going to be about.

“Even though there is a program of studies, the description for each course does not necessarily describe in full what the class is about. Many of the descriptions cover the content without addressing the format, flow, feel, etc. of the class. If students watch them I think they will benefit from the information. Not all of the videos made by teachers use the same format so I think the variety will help students get a better understanding of the courses that are offered,” Langelli added. 

The teacher’s videos will also help to spread the word about the different courses available to students. At the same time, Freedom offers many courses since there is a wide variety of them. With that being said, not every student knows what every class is about. These infomercials are a way to inform students about the courses in a short but effective manner. This can help make it more clear to students to know if the class they want to take is really what they think it is. These infomercials can also help to reduce the number of students that drop classes at the beginning of the school year.