Over their 17 year partnership (and counting!) The Academy of Talented Scholars (TAOTS) and The Media Spot developed the practice of student and staff mindful media making as a process for reflection on teaching and learning, and creating and spreading the culture that Founding Principal Josephine Sportella-Giusto envisioned.
Using media making to shape a school’s performance
The TAOTS video archives are available at taots.org and
Since opening the school in 2009, founding principal of The Academy of Talented Scholars (@PS682taots) in Brooklyn, Josephine Sportella-Giusto partnered with Rhys Daunic of The Media Spot (TMS) to capture and reflect on classroom processes, foundational themes and initiatives, and defining elements of the school using in-house student and staff media productions. If anyone in the community was not clear on the vision – the videos and podcasts helped clarify it. If the vision didn’t match with the authentic experiences in the classroom – the media making process allowed for that to come to light. When new initiatives needed a boost – the productions helped clarify the way forward. And in 2026, as she retires, these artifacts show how this amazing school evolved and emerged as a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, and a model school in Brooklyn’s District 20.
Media Literacy curriculum grew into school culture
The Media Spot’s 17-year collaborative partnership with began with establishing a media literacy scope and sequence, and helping teachers integrate media making and analysis in the classroom and enrichment clusters.
Soon after, founding principal Sportella asked TMS to work with students to document school initiatives and culture from their perspective. This began an annual practice of TAOTS leadership and The Media Spot assembling groups of students, teachers and administrators to articulate and foster the school culture Sportella envisioned through collaborative media making.
She would outline what she wanted to see evidence of, and The Media Spot would assemble various groups of students and staff members to make films that proved, or moved reality closer to, her vision. These productions involved student imagination, storyboarding, acting, editing, graphic design, and music. Films featured classroom practices or happenings, special programs, social emotional processes, career or school milestones, and starting in 2011, 5th graders began creating collaborative short films on graduation themes that involved wildly creative and joyful reflections on what their time at TAOTS meant to them.
How do you prove that a school’s founding vision succeeded over a 17-year span? You let the students, teachers and administrators document it in real-time, then reflect on the journey!
The resulting short film of a school’s history: collaboratively made by hundreds of students and educators
In honor of Josephine’s retirement, we created a retrospective 2o minute video (excerpted above) that compiled many highlights from old videos, featured testimonials from colleagues, and some original skits orchestrated by administrators and featuring the whole staff. It encapsulates a unique, production-based media literacy framework that turned students, teachers, and administrators into active storytellers. By treating media making as a metacognitive practice rather than just a technical skill, TAOTS built a sustainable culture where school evolution, student learning, and core institutional values were dynamically captured, questioned, and celebrated for nearly twenty years.
The Media Spot 