Project Lead

Allen Whitaker, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Project Team Members

Dr Fidelma Butler, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The Teaching Challenge

At time of application in 2019 the SEFS policy required postgraduate students to demonstrate up to 50hrs per annum unpaid.  School of BEES had revised its demonstrating policy to allow recognition of students contribution to peer assisted learning towards meeting this requirement.  Under this current project post-graduate students were encouraged to produce a series of instructional/explainer videos (2-3mins) on practical skills and in the production of video/mixed media presentations to accompany and enhance teaching and learning.  

The funded project facilitated and supported the production of these presentations by organising workshops with an instructional designer and through providing mentoring and editing support in the production of material.  

Within the School of BEES a vast amount of field based demonstrating and teaching is undertaken. Field-work is a resource intensive activity, therefore finding ways of maximising the student learning is a worthy goal. Time for field course preparatory work is sometimes lacking. Videos of field techniques which serve as preparatory material as well as assisting teaching of students who cannot access field sites are most useful. 

Videos produced help to complement/enhance teaching and learning of taught practical techniques. Videos to promote/showcase research were also produced.

The Project

The workshop was advertised by e-mail to the entire postgraduate student community across all the disciplines in the School of BEES. All academics and student supervisory staff of the School were also made aware of the project.  The workshop “Video Production for Experimental Techniques” consisted of two online lectures, one on “Storyboarding/Scripting” and another on “Filming/Editing” followed by a number participatory workshop sessions. Up to 60hours of video editing supports were also offered by Liane Costello, Video and Content Creator for Clean Coasts,  An Taisce. Liane is a graduate of Film Production and MSc in Marine Biology from UCC. Liane has produced two award winning short documentaries and has a lot of experience creating content for not-for-profit organizations.

Applicants to the Workshop were asked to identify an activity that they would like to make a short explainer type video of. Examples for video topics were given as:

• A task/technique or the instruction on the use of a piece of equipment that requires to be demonstrated in the lab or in the field
• Preparatory video for a class or field course
• Safety video in relation use of equipment or fieldwork
• A promotional video of their research

The Impact

This project improved the participants digital skills and enabled them to become better communicators of their scientific studies. It has supported participants in learning a new skill/technique enabling them to disseminate the concepts behind their scientific studies to a wider audience. Over the course of the workshop the participants created digital resources to aide in civic and community engagement and dissemination of project concepts. The workshop helped develop participants digital media skills aiding them in becoming effective global citizens.

The undergraduate and postgraduate student learning experiences has been enhanced with several of the participants being academic staff members. The professional learning and development of the staff participants has been greatly enhanced supporting them to develop the necessary skills to create digital content that supports teaching and learning.  Preparatory material for field-based teaching courses and lab based practical classes was a particular focus for these participants.  

Key Impacts:

• Supporting and enhancing the digital skills of post-graduate students to develop audio-visual resources.
• Promotion of digital teaching and learning.
• Development of new teaching techniques with/for those willing to incorporate digital teaching into their curriculum.
• Enhance the student-centred teaching and learning experience by engaging students themselves in the identification of required resources and in the production of learning and educational resources.
• Students created educational resources that can be used to assist within the teaching and learning environment.
• Supports field taught modules by providing preparatory demonstrations.
• Provide additional preparatory work for field courses allowing students to gain more and engage better with their field experience.
• Provide a platform where students unable to access field courses, for example due to disability, can access information and understand techniques being described to students in the field.
• Allowing students to visualise something that they may not understand through verbal explanation.

Feedback from Participants:

I thought the workshops were brilliant – especially the discussion sessions about the videos. Chatting with Liane and the others about our video gave us ideas/tips that we wouldn’t have thought of ourselves, so that aspect was definitely really useful.

Thoroughly enjoyed the film-making course. Really liked the structure of it – clear goal set out at the beginning, and the resources being delivered in palatable pieces as the video-making process went on. Feel equipped to keep making videos and I think we have a nice little gang now for collaborations.

The workshops have considerably improved my knowledge and skills on how to plan and successfully create a short video and I now feel confident that I can continue using these skills in future projects.

Before taking these workshops, I had no idea where to even start to make a video. Now, not only do I know where to begin, but how to carry an idea all the way through to an end product. Producing a video was a steep learning curve for me but I was grateful of the help and support of the workshop organisers and other students taking the course. Without the workshops, I never would have taken the time to learn this skill- something which has become increasingly important in our rapidly digitalised workspaces

For more information

Channel linking to some of the completed videos produced as part of the workshop: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNhV9BtUu2M3w9pbQVDRbyxAyYYZijLPu