I’ve long been an advocate for using something OTHER than an exam as the cumulative assessment at the end of a semester. For me, the end of a course is when students should be working at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy: analyzing, evaluating, and creating. There are all kinds of different projects that help students practice those skills, but one of my favorites is asking students to create a short, YouTube-friendly video.
Being able to effectively present material to others is something every student needs, regardless of their chosen career path. I want students to be able to distill down complex ideas and present them in a concise, direct, personable way. A short video is perfect for that, and in the era of smartphones and Zoom, anyone can make a half-decent video (obvs I don’t teach video production, ha!).
So what kind of content do my students present in these videos? It depends on the class! The sky’s the limit in terms of options: I’ve had students make “explainer” videos, “day in the life” videos, and more, all of which can easily be adapted to fit the needs of all kinds of courses. For example, in my gen ed class on King Arthur, I ask students to dream up an idea for a new version of King Arthur; figure out how to develop that idea as a movie, book, TV show, video game, comic book, etc; and pitch it to the execs with the power to decide whether or not their project gets a green light. This requires them to think about all the previous versions of the Round Table we’ve read and watched, think about what made them appealing to their audiences, and decide what audiences today need from the “Once and Future King.” In my “Exploring Utopia” class, which is an upper-level class for English majors and honors students, I ask students to design their own utopia and create a PR campaign video to encourage others to give their utopia a try (either as a short-term visit or a long-term lifestyle). After spending a semester thinking about how utopias as varied as Plato’s Republic and Andrew Niccol’s GATTACA work to balance the elements of justice, happiness, individuality and community, I can’t think of a better way to think about all of those elements of society than to try out that balancing act for yourself.
a few logistics:
- This can easily be done as an individual or group project
- Videos should be short: about 5 minutes is usually ideal
- They can be as simple as the student talking to the camera, or can include images, slides, music, etc. (I always remind students to prioritize content over production value, and often the “cheesiest” videos end up the most successful!)
- Finished videos are uploaded to the cloud storage of the student’s choice (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc) or as an unlisted (not private!) YouTube video
- I often also have a written component, which requires students to go into greater depth -this helps them recognize what the MOST important details are (the “elevator pitch,” so to speak) and use them in their video
I really enjoy watching these videos at the end of the semester – it’s fun to see my students get creative and figure out new ways to approach the material we’ve been thinking about all semester, while ALSO building real-world skills they can use in their life after college! (And yes, it’s way, way more fun that reading – or taking – exams!)