Using the Virtual Field Trip Videos to Encourage Active LearningAn important objective of the Virtual Field Trip project has been to think more about how the material in this collection can be used to encourage better learning outcomes. One of the benefits of using these short video clips for teaching is that they allow an inherently more active learning experience: visuals with motion, and even occasionally sound, give students a sense of what is happening in ways that still pictures or word descriptions cannot accomplish. On the other hand, it can be much harder for students to "catch" the important points from a video. Guidance materials that help students identify important points in the video clips can be especially helpful.When the Virtual Field Trip videos are used in class, instructors are encouraged to provide relevant explanations that highlight the points they consider important. When used outside of class, or in a distance learning format, we recommend taking special care to provide such guidance in written or audio format. One possible way to do this would be to provide a set of questions students might ask themselves as they view the videos, focusing attention on issues that are relevant to the particular topics of the class. My Cornell University class on kosher and halal food regulations draws students from many different majors. My pedagogical aim is to help them understand and evaluate religious slaughter (and all slaughter) more critically. However, many of these students have no experience with animals, agriculture, slaughter, or an operational food plant. The Virtual Field Trip videos offer them an opportunity to observe portions of the food production cycle that are really new to them in a real world context. They add depth to their understanding and permit a higher level of discussion on issues such as slaughter. As my class is focused on the processing of animals for human consumption, I find it useful to create flow charts in PowerPoint (click to see Example_1.ppt) to cover the processing steps in detail. The charts emphasize the difference between regular and religious slaughter, helping the students clearly identify the differences between the two processes. These flow charts also help them see what parts of the process are the same for both types of meat preparation. I find that PowerPoint slides with video and voice-over are more interesting than static slides. And, most importantly, they allow students to explore on their own those steps that are hard to visualize. s I use a course management application (Desire2Learn) to organize all the materials (PowerPoint slides, videos, handouts, etc.) in a way that makes the course accessible to students on their own schedule. The online format is useful for both resident and distance learning students. (This course is offered as a distance learning course at both Kansas State University and the University of Wisconsin - Madison.) The sample slides show how I have added both questions and focusing comments to the PowerPoint presentation. The comments are meant to highlight what I want the student to see, and the questions are meant to help the student integrate what he or she sees in the videos with the class material. As an alternative to the approach I've just described, instructors may wish to use the Virtual Field Trip videos as an illustrative supplement to a more comprehensive written text. By offering a link to a visual, students can see how the words in the text relate to something real. To illustrate this example, we have provided you with two examples that illustrate highlighting of text (click to see Example_2.doc) and elaborating on the written text (click to see Example_3.doc). (Both examples are courtesy of Dan Fletcher, who wrote a text while at the University of Georgia, although he is now chair at North Carolina State University). The second example is specifically designed to help students glean the most important points being made in the text. Hopefully this brief introduction to possible ways to use the Virtual Field Trip videos in teaching will help you come up with your own ways to use the materials in your classes. If you have additional ideas about how to use the materials or examples you want to share with colleagues, please use the feedback form to tell us about them. We'd be happy to post any additional thoughts in this "pedagogy" section of the site. -Joe Regenstein |
|
