Using Video Documentary Creation in the Science Classroom

A number of my classes have a significant project-based learning (PBL) component.  All of my classes are upper division Chemistry courses except for one, General Science, a liberal arts core course for students in the University’s Honors Program.  I team with an Earth Science colleague to teach the third term of this year long sequence course.  The students in our class are not science majors, rather, most are majoring in the arts, humanities, social sciences or education.  photographerWhile we teach some physics, chemistry, earth and environmental science through the topic of energy and energy resources, much of the students’ in depth learning comes from researching an energy topic of current interest and creating a video documentary about it.  The documentaries are used for class learning and are also presented in a public screening during Western Oregon University’s Academic Excellence Showcase. The project is a rather daunting one for our students as we are on the 10-week instructional quarter system, and in reality, they only have about 6 weeks from the time they start their research until the date of the Showcase event.  We have found over six years of using this instructional approach that production pairs work most effectively. There just is not enough time for single students to complete the work while larger groups invariably result in unequal divisions of labor.

Video production is writing in disguise, a term paper on steroids if you will.  Whereas a term paper is a very individual assignment written by a student and typically only shared with an instructor, the videos are writing shared with many people.  The project has a number of stages, and each provides students with the opportunity to learn some academically useful skills and improve their collaboration skills.  The stages are:

  1. Research
  2. Script Writing/Storyboarding
  3. Audio Recording
  4. Video Editing
  5. Proceedings Abstract Writing
  6. Presentation

Research

The research portion of the project is very similar to what a student does for a typical term paper.  However, during this phase, students are not just learning about their topics and collecting references.  They are also looking for imagery and video clips that they might be able to use.  We use this stage to teach about copyright and the Creative Commons.  If the students find non-Creative Commons pictures or video clips they would like to use, they learn how to seek the permission of the copyright holders to incorporate the materials into their projects.  We also provide a library of video clips we have recorded for them to use and royalty free materials.  Another skill we teach is how to locate scientific information and how to determine the validity of what they find.

Since this is a collaboration between two students, we provide them with a shared folder on the university network for storing files.  We have developed a class wiki site (hosted by PBworks), and each production team has a group of pages for storing research, composing their abstracts and developing the documentary storyboard.  The wiki serves two purposes.  It allows both members of the production team to add and edit materials (also members of other teams can drop anything they find that might be of use onto another team’s wiki space), and it allows the instructors to monitor each team’s progress to ensure they are keeping on schedule and make comments and suggestions.

Storyboarding

Once the students have gotten a significant amount of their research done, they develop a storyboard for the project.  For our purposes, a storyboard consists of a two column table with rows for each of the “scenes” in the video.  One column contains notations of the visual materials that will be on the video track, and the second column contains the audio (narration, music, sound effects) that will accompany those visuals on the audio track.  This is where the students write their narration script.   All of this is done on the wiki so we can read the scripts as they develop.

Recording the Narration

Once the script is written, students record their narration.  We use Audacity, a free audio recording software package, available for both Wiindows and Mac which does not have a huge learning curve.

Video Editing

Once the narrative recording is completed, it is laid down as the audio track to start the video editing process.  The visual track is then constructed with still graphics, video clips, transitions, titles, etc.  We use Adobe Premiere Elements, available in both Windows and Mac editions, as our video editing software. This software is quite powerful for a consumer software package and does have a learning curve.  To get the students up and running, I have created a web module with screencast tutorials of all the basic features needed to create a video.  Early in the term, we familiarize the students with the software by having them create a short 1-2 minute video clip with an audio track (learning Audacity), video from stock visuals (although they can opt to shoot their own), transitions and titles.  We devote several class/lab sessions to the actual video editing of the documentary project so I can trouble shoot and help with technical aspects.

Proceedings Abstracts

Western Oregon University allocates one day each spring (typically the Thursday after Memorial Day) for students to present academic work in a professional meeting environment which is open to all segments of the university community as well as the public at large.  This is the forum through which our senior Chemistry majors present their seminars, and the students in our General Science class show their videos.  A Proceedings with abstracts of all the presentations is published for the event.  The unfortunate part of the abstract writing exercise is that the deadline for abstract submission occurs before the students have completed their narrative due to the time frame needed to compile and print the abstract volume.  We teach about abstract writing, the students collaboratively write their abstracts within the wiki, and then we do group editing during a class session.

Presentation

When the Academic Excellence Showcase day comes, the students are present for the public screening of their videos.  Each pair of producers sit in directors chairs at the front of the auditorium and introduce their video, tell why they chose their topic and share something interesting that they learned during the research process.  After the videos are shown, they entertain questions from the audience.  This process can be a bit daunting to our students who are often freshman and sophomores as the lecture hall in which the screenings occur is often filled to standing room capacity (70 or more).

Miscellaneous Comments

We do devote a lot of class time to these projects so you may wonder how we cover the course content.  The theory behind project-based learning is that students learn more about a subject if they develop their own knowledge through an in depth study of a particular topical area than by a traditional overview of a subject.  Our students learn from their own research topic as well as from the range of topics covered in their classmates videos.  The members of the class watch and critique the other students videos multiple times, and the material from these topics is queried on the final exam.  During the term, we do cover basic physics, chemistry and earth science concepts as well as topics not explored in a given year’s video productions.  Much of the course content is delivered using a flipped classroom style methodology where students watch video lectures and complete web modules I have generated, watch videos on alternative energy topics, watch videos from previous years classes, read articles on energy innovations, conduct hands-on lab exercises, etc. We have conducted surveys of our students over the years we have been teaching this class, and the majority of the students rate their class experience favorably.  Some reoccuring themes we see in the surveys are that the students were afraid of the project because they came into the class with few of the technological skills needed for making a video; the students liked taking responsibility for their own learning; they were proud of what they accomplished and would recommend the class to others.  I am old fashioned… I believe that self-esteem and confidence comes from tackling challenges, learning from mistakes, and ultimately accomplishing a goal.  Our students, who are not going to be scientists and may even be “afraid” of science, leave our class confident that they can research a scientific topic and learn what they need to know to be an informed citizen.  This is my goal for these students!

Six years ago, Philip Wade, whose specialization is Earth Science education, and I undertook this as an investigation to see how alternative learning experiences can be used in the university classroom, and we are very pleased with the results.  It takes much more effort to teach the class in this manner than if we used a traditional lecture approach.  We have presented our findings via poster and oral presentations at several meetings of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and were invited to write a chapter, “Using Video Projects in the Science Classroom”, in the monograph New Trends in Earth Science Outreach and Engagement, Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research published (December 2013) by Springer based on one of our oral presentations.  In addition, a number of our student videos have been selected each of the last two years for showing along side commercial productions as part of the AGU Cinema held during the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco.  We plan to submit entries this summer from this year’s class for consideration for next December’s Cinema.

It is true that our students’ videos are not technically perfect.  There is just not sufficient time to mix the audio and to get the levels even throughout the production and to fix other imperfections.  Oh, what I would give for a 15-week semester course!  We give our students freedom to tell their stories however they wish.  While most use a “Ken Burns” style, we have had students write a play and do the acting, write their own music , make their own models, etc.  I am surprised we haven’t seen a “rap” version yet…we do encourage them to be creative! Here are some examples of this year’s videos (note that each video begins with about 10 seconds of a leader so the video does not begin abruptly at the screening).  I’d love to see any comments or suggestions you have.

Coal

An excellent student effort


Cracking the Case on Fracking

This is an interesting way of telling a story.  It was “performed” and filmed by the two students.  The background image is a tree trunk section showing the growth rings in case you are wondering.


The Ocean: Energy in Waves

This one contains some very nice imagery


Black Gold – Texas Tea

A well done look at petroleum


One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Fuel

This video takes you to an energy generating facility not far from the university’s campus

iThoughts …Get It While It’s Hot!

I have been playing around with mind mapping tools lately and found out that an app I really like has been updated and is on sale. iThoughts-iPad iThoughts HD, a great iPad mind mapping tool, has been totally rewritten from the ground up and was released May 13 with a new name, iThoughts for iOS 7 which is universal for both the iPhone and iPad.  Since this release is essentially a new app, if you already own iThoughts HD, you will need to purchase it again.  However, for a limited time it is available for $1.99 in the iOS App Store which is 80% off the regular price.

In addition to the mobile app, there is a companion application for the Mac called iThoughtsX.  iThoughtsXYou can move your maps easily between your i-devices and Mac via iCloud, Dropbox, etc. allowing you to brainstorm anywhere.  When your mind map is complete, you can export it in a variety of ways including OPML, PDF and HTML for sharing or for use with other applications.  To celebrate the launching of iThoughts for iOS 7, the Mac version is also on sale for $48 which is 20% off the normal price.  Although this might seem to be a bit expensive, computer mind mapping tools often range in price from $100-$300.

You can purchase iThoughtsX either from the developer’s (Toketaware) website or from the Mac App Store.  Want to try before you buy?  You can download a free 14 day trial for iThoughtsX from Toketaware.  iThoughtsX licensing allows the software to be installed on multiple computers as long as only one person is using it at any one time.  The developer’s website indicates that educational discounts are available upon request.   Both the mobile and Mac versions are great pieces of software although I really like the convenience of the iPad version for use anywhere an idea strikes me.

Nifty, Inexpensive Solution for File Transfer and Storage Capacity Expansion for Phones and Tablets

It doesn’t take long to fill up a 16 GB mobile phone or tablet with photos, video and other media-rich materials.  This really can be a problem if you are using your phone or tablet to shoot photos and/ or video for projects.  Another issue is how to easily get those photos and videos off your phone for backup purposes or how to get photos from a camera to an iPad for better viewing.

Kingston Technology makes a nifty and inexpensive device that fits in a pocket which can solve these issues and more called the MobileLite Wireless (MLW).  It allows you to stream audio content, photos and videos to a mobile device.  The MLW does not have built-in storage but rather serves as a wireless card reader allowing transfer of files between an SD card, USB thumb drive, portable hard drive or even a computer via USB and your iOS or Android device.mobilelite-iphone

So how does it work?  The battery powered MLW is the hub of a wireless network and connects to your mobile device via a free companion app.  Once connected, you can either transfer files or stream media to up to three wireless devices simultaneously.

Here are some examples of use cases for the device.  (1) You or your students have shot video or still photos on a cell phone and need to get them off the phone.   You can wirelessly transfer the data to either an SD card or USB drive to free up storage space or for editing.   (2) You have taken a group of photos that you want to view on a larger screen.  You can stream them to your iPad or other tablet while in the field to look at them.  (3) Less academically, you are traveling and want to watch movies on the trip without using up all the storage on your phone or tablet.  Just save them on a USB drive, portable hard drive or SD card to stream to your tablet or phone, and in fact, different members of your family can all be watching different movies simultaneously!  The manufacturer advertises a 5 hour battery life so you might almost be able to cover a coast to coast flight.

This is a great little device.  Kingston does make a similar product with on-board storage, but I like the idea of being able to take the appropriate media size I need for a given application with me.  If this is something that you could use,  I’d grab one now.  I bought mine from Amazon for $41.99, but it is currently listed at $36.

 

“No Courses, No Classes, No Grades – Just Learning”

This is the title of an article by Christina Farr about the project-based learning program NuVu Studio where students enrolled in the program learn by solving real world problems3d_hand_wireframe_hand.  For example, a project for one group of students was to make a  mock up of an affordable prosthetic hand.  After conducting interviews with amputees and their families, physicians, and engineers, the students designed a prosthetic device and produced it on a 3D printer.  This is an interesting, thought provoking article.

Course Content Delivery and Today’s Student

We are all aware that the “millenials” (today’s 18-25 year old college students) are more plugged into technology than students of the past.  They are more apt to get their news from the internet than a newspaper or TV, communicate with friends and family by texting and are constantly plugged into social media.  The bottom line is that they respond differently to content presentation than past generations.  They do seem to respond less well to being passive vessels absorbing course content via lecture…. I wonder if passive learning has really ever been such a good idea …..

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand” is a quote attributed to Confucius that shapes many of my approaches to education. Confucius the Scholar As much as possible, I try to incorporate “doing” into my instructional methods either by having students actively interacting with the course material during class time or by using Project-Based Learning (PBL) approaches where students become responsible for their own learning through the in depth research needed to produce a product that will be used to inform classmates and/or the public instead of assignments only viewed by an instructor.  I have experimented with PBL-style instruction in classes for non-science students as well as those for chemistry majors and graduate level in-service teachers.  Since most of the projects have involved student use of technology, they also fit into the scope of this blog.

For the last couple of years, I have delivered my organic chemistry class in the “flipped” mode.  Students watch short video lectures outside class rather than hour-long in-class lectures.  During the class period students actively review the material and solve problems using student response devices (“clickers”).

In some other courses, this online video technique is combined with a PBL approach (which also allows students to use writing skills within a scientific context).  My environmental chemistry course was one of the University’s online offerings this year.  Video presentations of materials was combined with current interest, online discussions and a project in which each student was to present a current topic to the members of the class.  This was done by each student producing a “podcast” in the vein of the “How Stuff Works” podcasts.  My energy resources class uses video lectures coupled with a major class project, the writing of an electronic textbook while teams of students in my liberal arts core general science class for those in the University’s Honors Program produce video documentaries that are publicly screened.

Flipping your class and facilitating student projects is quite labor intensive, but I am very satisfied with the fruits of my labor and can’t imagine reverting to a lecture-centric approach.  I will write future posts with more details about the technology used in creating online video materials and by students in their projects.