UC Blue Ash Professor Connects with Students through Video

For many faculty and students, class time is over sooner than they realize. And outside of the classroom, both students and faculty are even busier. Although class time is limited, aspects meant to help students grow, such as feedback on assignments, shouldn’t be sacrificed. Eric Anderson found a solution that both saves class time and propels student learning in his courses.

Anderson, who teaches courses in digital design, web development and video production, said providing written feedback to students isn’t an engaging or useful means of communicating about media production assignments, as electronic media is a form of visual communication. 

Instead, Anderson began creating custom videos for each student to give them feedback on assignments. In each video, he not only talks about their project but also uses screen capture technology to annotate the areas he is referring to, demonstrate the correct ways to use the software, and provide useful actionable feedback.

“Technology has freed me from spending too much classroom time doing lectures and tedious tasks,” Anderson said.  “I’m now able to make better use of our time together and my classes are much more active.”

The personalized videos allow Anderson to give students more detailed feedback. Students can watch their videos on their own time, so they can come to class ready to actively learn new things and improve their skills.

“I feel strongly that it isn’t enough to just incorporate new technology for its own sake,” Anderson said. “I always assess its effectiveness to make sure it actually had a positive impact and enhanced student learning.”

While Lynda.com is a great, free resource for students to become a pro at virtually any software or other technology, Anderson found that students had difficulties finding the specific tutorials that would be helpful to them. The students also found Lynda tutorials to be lengthy. 

Instead, Anderson records instructional videos about how to use required software using Kaltura and posts the tutorials to Blackboard. This way, he can make tutorials more concise and tailor them to each specific assignment. Each tutorial Anderson records is under four minutes long.

“Today’s students have been immersed in technology their entire lives and they expect it in the classroom,” Anderson said. “UC is providing us with a wide array of exciting technology tools. I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t experiment with ways to integrate them into my classroom to improve student learning. Plus, it makes my job more interesting and keeps me on my toes.”