Active Learning Week meets Clips

As I've mentioned here before, my campus' 1:1 program is not Apple-centric. So, I've mainly focused my efforts on developing ways for faculty to use their iOS devices to benefit students. I'm currently a co-leader of a California State University (CSU) faculty cohort working to augment courses with technology (the CSU CRT program). I recently led a videoconference with my cohort (using Zoom) that focused on various ways to use videos in (and around) class. Of course, I featured Clips! This despite many of the faculty in my cohort not being in 1:1 mobile device programs or classes.

One of the reasons I was inspired to focus one of our cohort meetings on Clips is because I had just used Clips to generate a video to celebrate AAC&U's Active Learning Week. This annual event, which just passed, is organized by Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) and hosted on the STEM Central website. Briefly, the goal each year is to have teachers sign an online pledge to incorporate one active learning exercise in a STEM class (and this year, they added the goal of making that activity culturally responsive).

It just happend that, around Active Learning Week, I was scheduled to be at the annual conference of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), which meant I would miss one day of my genetics class at CSU Fresno.

Yes, and…

Being digitally inclined, I had already been planning on leaving my students digital activities to work on in my absence; then I decided to up the ante and also be available on Zoom for my students to consult.

Another (optional) part of the Active Learning Week pledge is to create a video to showcase one's activity. This is where I knew that I had to use Clips - both to generate my class activity, and also to promote it!

Active Learning with Clips: Jigsaws

I've already written a blog post about using Clips for jigsaw activities, so I won't duplicate that information here. I'll just point out that it is fantastic that I can be states away from my class and still create a few short videos for different groups of students to watch and become content experts in.

In this class, the topic of the day was "genetically modified organisms" (GMOs). So, I made a few Clips introducing different potential GMOs. My students were tasked first with developing their own definition of a GMO. Then, each student watched one Clip and then shared that information with students who watched the other two Clips:

• https://youtu.be/nRUWkNmkvGE
• https://youtu.be/cil4B0PZbo8
• https://youtu.be/rEaJKeO0wSk

Their group task was to determine whether any of the examples in the Clips above met (or did not meet) their definition.

Using Clips to Advocate using Clips

Clips made a fantastic platform for me to create in-class, interactive material for my students even when I wasn't present. It also allowed me to create a video showcase of the process. Please watch it here! https://youtu.be/EW-C6IAU8Iw

And so, this is the process I described to my course redesign faculty cohort. If you're interested, you can watch my presentation and the ensuing discussion here: https://youtu.be/l2dLy53RKR4?t=15m45s

Caveats

As a result of:

• using Clips to create jigsaw videos, and then
• performing synchronous online videoconference during a class meeting, and then
• using Clips to create a video about the process

I encountered a few…opportunities:

• It turns out, it is a good idea to put the "Do not disturb" sign on your hotel door if you don't want housekeeping to work on your room during class
• I thought an efficient and productive strategy would be to wait until my travel home to create the Active Learning Week video summarizing my use of Clips to coordinate active learning, in my physical absence. I learned a few additional things I'd like to share:
• An airplane flight is a great time to go back and edit live caption text (especially if you remembered to bring headphones)
• It is difficult to get a clean audio recording when doing live caption voiceovers on light rail or when sitting at the gate (unless you really want to have the gate agent's voice in the background)
• For some reason, even though I had already downloaded all of the posters and soundtracks and other Clips media, I had to do so again (in the absence of wi-fi)…I'm still trying to figure this one out. Maybe Clips had auto-updated, and new versions of Clips require those media to be downloaded again?

Next year, let's all participate in Active Learning Week (even if you don't teach a STEM discipline!)