Last week, the students in my genetics class made stop motion videos. They had to do some preparation as homework (mainly thinking about a topic), but other than that, they just had 50 minutes to make a movie. I expected that most would not finish it in that time, but they get extra credit if they finish it at home.
From my colleague Kimberly Tanner from the Science Education Partnership and Assessment Laboratory (SEPAL), I have learned to collect feedback from students very often during the semester, so I asked them: Did you learn from Monday’s class?
Probably 90 students made a stop motion video in the two sections of my genetics class on Monday. 54 of them wrote feedback on Wednesday. 32 of 54 (59%) thought they learned something about genetics!
32 students felt like they learned something about genetics
6 students thought it was “just review”
I think that review is very useful!
8 students felt like they learned about how to make a stop motion video
8 students felt like they didn’t learn anything
Will I do this again?
Yes! Definitely!
But I may talk to students more about how this exercise will benefit their learning and encourage students to pick a topic they would like to review.
Being A Better Scientist 