Dr Jan Eichhorn: Using video to support on campus students
Jan Eichhorn is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Social Policy at the UoE’s School of Social and Political Science. Jan’s use of technology has been popular with students, and in 2013 he received the EUSA award for Teaching with Technology.
“The things I did were fairly simple – but used by a lot of students.
Before each class, I uploaded a short introductory video (3-5 mins), to give a bit more context to the readings they would be engaging with.
After each class, I uploaded a 7-15 minute reflection video that provided a summary of class discussions and also gave students the chance to get answers to questions they didn’t understand. I encouraged them to let me know about things they found difficult so I could focus on these in the reflection videos. I should say the videos were very simple, just me talking to the camera (but trying to have less text for students to read – the barrier to watching a clip is lower than reading another text I think).
The students’ final assignment was a research paper based on a research question they would have to design themselves. To practise this, each week they could upload a question based on that week’s topic to the course forum on Learn. I would then post a video in which I went through all of the questions and gave feedback (screen and voice capture). This way, they got feedback on their question, but could also see feedback of others (they could decide themselves whether they wanted to upload it anonymously or not).
In addition, I did some of the usual things: there were forum folders for students to upload interesting materials they encountered (documentaries, etc.) and I also uploaded videos and interviews of key people relevant to the course.
I also uploaded a set of FAQs around the assignments.
So as you can see, none of this was very technologically advanced – but it was easily accessible and had utility for students, which I think is the key for them to use it.”
Further information
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