Lately I have grown oh so tired of my customary methods of assessment: quizzes, exams, reaction papers, etc. For my culture and civ class I am pondering having students create a 5-10 minute video of some kind (a dramatization of an historical event, dramatize a scene from a comedia, a quasi-journalistic report on a current affair , etc. ). I figured it could be cool to have them upload the videos to YouTube for sharing purposes. Have any of you tried such an assignment? Any pointers, warnings you want to pass along?
Or have you fruitfully experimented with other forms of media for purposes of student projects?
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We have a "digital humanities minor" in which students can opt out of the standard term paper and produce something like what you've described. It seems to me that the drawback would be the video production skills. Not everyone is so tech-savvy. I have a colleague who uses really creative assignments for her Comp Lit classes (known as "World Lit" within the claustrophobic basements of English Departments everywhere). Instead of making them do a movie, they do a movie poster. Couldn't upload that to Youtube, though.
I can see assigning something like that as long as it has some mechanism for ensuring critical thinking, or at least creative and personal meditation, goes into the project.
I'll look into the movie poster. CWU tries to promote the poster approach, but I have never tried it.
It just occurred to me that having students create and maintain a blog on a topic of their choosing might be a good way to have them engage the material. Any thoughts?
You could give them Peninsularistas as a model! (Just kidding.) I'm in favor of blogs...
Like Kent said, the video has got to use some critical analysis and take some position or perspective on a theme or issue. I know of other professors who have their students create an ad. I like these ideas but have never ventured beyond the standard assessments. I think one could set it up well with a lot of control over the process so the students really get engaged with it. I also like the blog idea if they really would discuss their courses outside of class.
Thanks for the input. I am going with the blog idea I think. This seems more practical and more educational for the students, rather than the short film idea (which does have its place, in the right context).
This discussion also points to a number of obstacles to "critical thinking" that will confront my students in this particular class. I recall Dave's reflections on writing in Spanish versus English and how students without a firm grasp of Spanish are often unable to critically analyze in the second language, lacking the words to do so. In this culture and civ class I am facing that challenge, as well as the fact that the complete cult/civ of Spain and Latin America is taught in one quarter (!). Given the ridiculous breadth of material to cover and the generally low Spanish proficiency level of the students, I hope simply to foment an interest (ideally, a lasting interest) in this material...and if some critical thinking can happen here or there, all the better.
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