Movies and movie clips can be a great way to add and increase interest to a lesson or topic. Jeff Brown, of Colorado, teaches a Psychology of Relationships course (any many others) at Rampart High School and has an amazing collection of Relationship Videos that he has created for that class.  He is graciously sharing his video collection with us, along with his websites which are chocked full of materials for various content areas.  So, if you’ve been struggling to add more interest and engagement to your relationship lessons, you are definitely going to want to check these out!

Materials

• iPad or Laptop
• Projector & Screen

Background

• Jeff has always used pop culture clips, movies, songs, pictures, etc. to teach important things in his classes and finds it helps the kids stay engaged. The relationship videos were an outgrowth of that.
• Video making for Jeff began in 2022, after learning how to edit videos from a colleague, with the four part video series explaining the movie, Encanto and the family dynamic. His collection has evolved to 30 videos, averaging about 2 every month. He says it can take a few hours to gather all of the clips, film his parts and do the voice overs and then put them all together. If making your own videos is of interest to you, Jeff encourages you to find someone to teach you or take a course on video making.
• Every week Jeff sends out one or two videos to parents that go along with the topics being discussed in class so that they can discuss it with their child and hopefully learn a few skills on their own. Additionally, with the support of his principal and the positive parental responses, videos will be included in the school’s newsletter this upcoming school year.
• Because the response to his relationship videos has bee so positive, he is working on a child development curriculum as well.

Tips & Advice

• For teachers who wish to use these in their lessons, check out his website to see how he incorporates video clips, songs, pictures, etc. into his lessons. He includes several resources that correspond to each of the lessons.  The videos were made to teach people cool skills from his class and he encourages and supports teachers using them with their own individual teaching style.
• In class, Jeff does a longer version of the videos in live form and pauses to discuss things more often. He includes notes pages for students to fill out. Teachers can access these on his website. When students just watch the video, he usually does it in EdPuzzle format where they watch the video and digitally answer questions along the way. These are not published yet, but he is hoping to get them on the website soon.
• I asked Jeff if there was a video that students considered to be their favorite and his response was the love and dating series of videos that begins with this video clip titled Dating Red Flags! In those videos Jeff spends a lot of time trying to help students make better choices on who they choose to date and what makes up a healthy dating relationship. According to statistics 1/3 of students have been in an abusive relationship in one form or another. He’s even had students leave toxic relationships after learning about them!  How cool is that?!.
• Jeff wants to support other teachers and welcomes questions and discussion.  He can be contacted via email at jedimasterjeffbrown@gmail.com or you can add discussion comments on his website.

Resources

• Website
• Relationship Teacher Materials
• Power in Relationships Videos
• Relationship Systems & Patterns
• Videos by Topic