Creating a digital resource for critical thinking in Molecular Biology

Grant:

Instructional Development Fund (IDF)

Academic Year:

2015 - 2016 (June 1, 2015 through May 31, 2016)

Funding Requested:

$500.00

Project Dates:

Fri, 12/18/2015 - Fri, 01/08/2016

Applicant(s):

maddock

Overview of the Project:

MCDB 427 is an upper level required course for the Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) major. This course relies on a textbook that emphasizes critical analysis of experimental data and poses a challenge for many of our students. In the past few years several new resources and different pedagogical approaches have been implemented but there remains a few students that have difficulty accessing the material. The focus of this proposal is to generate a new digital resource. Specifically, we will generate video recordings (~12) describing key experiments that students struggle with. These recordings will be made available on YouTube and on Canvas. All of the funds will be used for the salary of one undergraduate who has (1) taken the course and (2) has extensive experience generating digital media for science problems. This student will work closely with the PI over the holiday so that the videos will be available for the winter term.

Final Report Fields

Project Objectives:

The objectives were to create about a dozen videos that covered particularly difficult aspects of the Molecular Biology (MCDB 247) course. This was to be done over the Christmas holiday. An undergraduate student was to make the first draft and final versions, with extensive feedback from me.

Project Achievements:

We started a bit too ambitiously, and made 20 first pass rough videos. We quickly realized that it would be impossible to make final versions of so many videos. We then focused on the material early in the course and at the end of the course (6 and 7 videos, respectively). The student made the first draft and I provided extensive comments. She then made second drafts and I gave more feedback. Sometimes the 3rd version was the final version. In a few cases, we had to make a 4th version. In three cases, we didn’t have a perfect final version so I edited what we had so that the available video was accurate. All of this took more drafts and time than we had expected and so in addition to the funds provided by CRLT, I gave the student $500 of my own money so that she would be compensated for her time. In doing this, we had quality videos by the start of the Winter term. Of the 6 videos that have been applicable for the course thus far, they have been watched 2963 times (15,791 viewing minutes). The interest extends far beyond UM as the winter class is only 54 students. From the United States, Michigan (1,526 minutes) has the top number of views with California close behind (1,449 minutes). Of the 7 videos that are for later in the course, some worldwide viewing has occurred (15-82 views/video), mostly in the US (primarily Michigan, Arizona, New York, Delaware and California) and India. I anticipate that the viewing rates will go up once this part of the course is taught across the world. The current UM students have been enthusiastically excited about these videos. They have certainly achieved the goal of helping students understand difficult content.

Continuation:

Ideally, the video project is expanded to cover the entire course. I plan on using the newly established web site (see below) for additional improved content (e.g. more videos and critical analysis of each data figure).

Dissemination:

The videos are all on YouTube and are easily found by a simple search. To make the videos easily accessible to UM students, I have developed a web page accessible only to the umich domain. I will also migrate the videos to a YouTube page that will be linked to the account on the web page. This will allow all future MCDB 427 faculty to have access to the videos and other content.

Advice to your Colleagues:

The videos took much more effort than expected. There were many errors in the first, second and sometimes third drafts. In addition to the student's time, each video took about 6 hours of my own time. Doing them myself would have been so much faster. However, the student brought to the videos fresh ideas and a perspective that is particularly helpful in explaining complex content to someone at their level. The final product is so much better than a faculty video. I also learned some things about my own teaching in doing this project.

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