As digital media becomes easier to create and disseminate, faculty have come to embrace the technology in course learning initiatives and objectives. One such example is the video project Professor Andre Taylor from Chemical Engineering assigned his CENG 210 students in the fall of 2009. The students of CENG 210 were charged with the task of creating short promotional videos for various target audiences of prospective engineering students at Yale. While the project served to deepen the students’ understanding of Chemical Engineering’s connections to other disciplines and fields, it also modeled the type of teamwork students would encounter as a regular component of a career in Chemical Engineering. Members from the Instructional Technology Group (ITG) and the Visual Resources Collection (VRC) worked closely with Professor Taylor and his students in offering course design, student consultations, video camera and video editing workshops, and grading rubrics.
Professor Andre Taylor teaches the first class engineering students take at Yale (CENG/ENVE 210a). The course answers questions such as: what do chemical engineers do and what do they do at Yale, since Yale is primarily a liberal arts college? How can engineers help the world? The course focuses on bringing real events into the class. Professor Taylor based the student created video assignment on both course learning outcomes and accreditation guidelines for engineering. Professor Taylor was looking for a way to pull out some of the practical requirements of these objectives and guidelines while also putting together a fun assignment.
Project: In small groups, create a 3-minute promotional video targeted for one of these groups:
- Prospective Yale students and freshman
- International outreach (Yale’s Global Educational Mission)
- High school students from disadvantaged areas
The Instructional Technology Group (ITG) helped Professor Taylor integrate the assignment into the course curriculum and developing a grading rubric. The grading rubric {link} was available on the ClassesV2 site and presented to students right from the start to shape expectations. Carolyn Caizzi, Technology Specialist from the Visual Resource Collection, held several video workshops for the students on shots, angles, flow, and other video production considerations. ITG also conducted an iMovie workshop to help students with editing their footage. An assessment was conducted and the students cited the final product as the most rewarding aspect. They also acknowledged that they understood the teamwork and collaboration aspect.
Link to the Student Created video projects, http://wordpress.commons.yale.edu/ceng
Link to course syllabus: enve210a
Link to treatment: treatment1
Video-Shooting workshop: video-workshop-presentation-10209-2
Professor Taylor’s PowerPoint presentation: adtaylor_ceng210a-class-project_twtt-series
Yianni Yessios and Matthew Regan’s PowerPoint: twtt-studentvideo
For full coverage of this session, please click the video below (note a slight delay upon initial playback):