Dr Phil Ansell, Senior Lecturer
School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics
Science, Agriculture and Engineering
What did you do?
Students were asked to submit, as part of a group assessment, a video instead of a written report
Who is involved?
Phil Ansell (Maths & Stats) Stage 2 Undergraduate students
How do you do it?
Students were told in advance that the group project was going to be “a bit different!”. I formed groups by asking students to team up in 2’s or 3’s and then I joined the groups up, the aim being to get students to work with friends but also with people they didn’t know.
In the introductory lecture for the project the “rules” were revealed. Each group had to produce 2 videos and submit to me using the University “dropoff” service (this was to avoid concerns about file size). One of the videos was a “Street Scientist” activity and the other was the solution to some homework questions.
Why do you do it?
Three reasons for doing it: – to include team work in a key Stage 2 probability module – to evaluate how easy it was for students to make and edit videos on their mobile devices – to evaluate how this method of assessment could be incorporated into a “skills module”
Does it work?
The practicalities of it worked well. I asked for feedback and in general the team aspect of it worked well (although as always, some teams worked better than others”).
The quality of the videos was excellent, students made them in their flats (using whiteboards etc) in rooms in the School of Maths & Stats (meeting rooms, study areas etc) and also in the University library. Many of them were produced on phones, tablets and although the quality varied all were easy to view and assess.
Many of them were edited using standard software (e.g. Windows Movie Maker). The “dropoff” service provided a simple and efficient way of getting the files to me. The content that the students were asked to make the videos about didn’t engage them in the way that I would have liked, but that will be easy to amend in future years.
Contact Details
Dr Phil Ansell, Senior Lecturer