Project introduction and background information
The design of the course Problem Analysis of Technology, Policy and Management was a mix of traditional lectures and students who worked together in groups of five.
Objective and expected outcomes
This course was redesigned in order to activate students even more. Rather than follow traditional lectures, the students watched knowledge clips. Knowledge clips are short movies of about 8 minutes that explain a new element of the exam material. The teaching staff spent a lot of time making sure these clips were attractive to students, by thinking about whether the teaching staff came across as enthusiastic, who explains the assignments and having former students comment on mistakes they made the previous year. Also there was a clear course website that was created together with students. The student groups continue to exist and teaching assistants support these groups. This course design is known as flipping the classroom.
Results and learnings
The knowledge clips explained material from the course Problem Analysis of Technology, Policy and Management. The knowledge clips were used to activate the students and improve study success.
- Increase in study success: The percentages of students that pass the course was raised slightly. The drop-out percentage decreased significantly to 0%!
- Increase in student motivation: Students react positively to the course.
- Decrease in workload teacher: The teachers work load decreased significantly because he did not have to give the lectures anymore.
- Mix of traditional lectures and flipped classroom: It would be good to find a middle ground between traditional lectures and a completely flipped classroom model.
Recommendations
- It takes quite some time to develop the knowledge clips. Therefore, they are most useful when you can use them multiple years on a large scale.
- It is important to think about the attractiveness of the clips to students. Think about how you want to come across as teaching staff, who can explain what the best and whether you can incorporate former students in the clips.
- The effectiveness of knowledge clips is associated with the quality of the videos. Also, the knowledge clips need to be a coherent whole.
- The effectiveness of knowledge clips is also associated with the relationship with the other learning activities. For example, research shows students learn concept well if you show common misconceptions in videos.
- Using teaching assistants costs money. Using PhD’s rather than teaching assistants does not work as well, because they all teach the course slightly differently. This has led to problems in the past with the exams.