Embedding multimedia to improve understanding of biochemistry Faculty Spark - View, reflect and apply

Last updated on 25/02/2020

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Description

A creative, multimedia, group project was embedded to improve engagement and performance in a 2nd year Biochemistry course. The task encourages students to integrate complex information to produce a digital representation of a biochemical pathway.

Challenge

As a discipline, biochemistry is epistemologically difficult with metabolism containing a significant number of biochemical pathways that are fundamental to understanding. It is well recognized that resources encouraging visualization of biochemical content are important for improving understanding and learning outcomes. Today, tertiary students are searching the internet for animations and visual explanations of theoretical concepts that will assist their learning. Though students require support to develop improved skills in visual literacy if they are to benefit from the array of visualisation tools made available to them.

Approach

This assessment task was designed to be a semester long group based (5 students in each group) project worth 10% of the final grade for the course. The task involved the production of a 5 minute creative multimedia presentation, that could take the form of a song, animation, movie/role play, integrated flow chart/concept map with explanations that was capable of being uploaded onto the course website.

The assessment task was introduced to students in Week 1 of the semester, at which time the course convenor assisted with group formation. Each group was required to choose one topic from a list content areas that covered fundamental concepts/pathways of biochemistry and mapped to clearly defined learning objectives for the course. Each content area was supported by a series of associated resources that briefly summarised the topic and provided links to lecture material, relevant sections of the text book and additional reference material from which students could draw.

The project was designed in two stages with a combination of examiner, peer and group assessment that consisted of:

  • Part 1 (40%): Theoretical overview and project plan including story board;
  • Part 2 (50%): Final Presentation, 5 minute multimedia production, assessed on the basis of technical accuracy, entertainment value and usefulness as a learning tool;
  • Peer Assessment (10%): Class evaluation of individual group projects; and
  • Intragroup assessment: Grade moderation based upon participation within groups. Participation percentages of 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% available for each member with average percentages applied to final grade.

The final assessment component was submitted in Week 12 onto the course website. Students were given one week to evaluate the projects produced by a minimum of 10 other groups from the class using the rate post function on the website. This component of peer review contributed a further 10% to the overall grade for the project. During this one-week period the assessment team evaluated each project and assigned a grade for the final 50% of the project. The final component of the project assessment consisted of intergroup peer evaluation whereby each member of a group assigned a participation percentage of 50%, 75% or 100%, the average of which was used to moderate the final grade assigned to each student for the project.

A two-hour session was held in the final week (13) of teaching that was used to review and discuss the presentations as a class group. This session provided the class with an opportunity the see examples of the 10 best presentations and for the course convenor to link the student presentations to the learning objectives and revision of the course.

Outcomes

On the whole, students found this assessment tasks to be a useful learning and study tool that added a fun dimension to the course. By developing multimedia based representations of complex biochemical pathways students were able improve their understanding of their chosen topic and generate a repository of clips that could be utilized for study purposes.

Students found concrete value in the presentations produced by other groups. This was evidenced through both the quantitative and qualitative evaluations and more strongly by the fact that students viewed an average of 75% of the available presentations and each individual presentation on 3-4 occasions. For those presentations identified as high quality, the rate of viewing increased to 95% of the cohort with an average of 5 views per student. When considering that the videos were only available to students to view from the start of the final week of semester, the average viewing time of 7 hours per student represents a significant proportion of study time students chose to spend revising through this method.

The below video is an example of one that was received. This video won an award at the Digital Explanations Sciences Festival.

Videos were supplied with permission from the original creators.

Enabling Technology

To create their final presentations, students utilise a wide variety of commonly available technology such as video cameras, iPhone applications, Powerpoint, slowmation software, video production software (imovie and windows movie maker), among others. Students are not encouraged to utilise one form of technology over another, instead are able to draw upon the technological experience of group members. With this in mind, technological quality is not a component of the assessment rather it is the quality of the explanation and suitability of the approach that is graded.

Implement

If you're interested in implementing an approach like this in your teaching practice, get in touch with your Blended Learning Advisor, Education Designer or Learning Futures to discuss how you can do this.

Next Steps

For those contemplating this form of assessment it is very important that the overarching purpose of the task is clearly articulated to students. For cohorts with limited group work experience (as was the case for this cohort) careful monitoring of group dynamics and a willingness to engage in discussion with groups across the semester was important. Finally, providing an opportunity to celebrate student success in a 2 hour review session that drew on the videos encouraged students to utilise the resources for their own study.

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Licence

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Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial International License (CC BY-NC 4.0)

The Griffith material on this web page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). This licence does not extend to any underlying software, nor any non-Griffith images used under permission or commercial licence (as indicated). Materials linked to from this web page are subject to separate copyright conditions.

Preferred Citation

Vanderlelie, J., and Learning Futures (2020). Embedding multimedia to improve understanding of biochemistry. Retrieved from https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/exlnt/entry/3766/view