Abstract:

Teachers are specially concern with the searching and training of new teaching methods to promote in their students active and interactive learning experiences. Different resources can be designed in order to achieve this aim, such as the use of video. Some advantages can be pointed out: videos can make teaching more active and enjoyable, emphasize ideas and promote discussion, allow information to be presented at the student's own pace. But watching a video can be also a passive experience that eventually adds nothing to, for example, listening a lecture. Here we report a positive experience on learning veterinary anatomy through videos. We motivated the students not to watch videos but to create their own videos for the study of the head skeleton. This activity can be carried out simply and with inexpensive equipment. First of all it was very important to select all the material to be shown to students beforehand, thus avoiding any unnecessary content. The students first attended the practical sessions during which the teachers showed them the important anatomical items. It was also helpful to look through other videos for ideas on how to illustrate specific items. Finally, the students were given simple tasks to carry out while making and editing the video, in order to get a video that hopefully engages other students when watching it. Students distributed into different groups, so that the work was carried out by 1 person up to 4 people, depending on the content. The videos were watched and evaluated by the teachers, and students were given a score instead of taking the exam. Evaluation checked not only the correct anatomy content but also (and equally important) different skills: clear and structured presentation, video edition, teamwork ability. We wanted also to compare with the traditional learning by asking individually about their opinion: to which extend the students considered they have learnt. All of the polled students pointed out the video-making as a more motivating and rewarding experience than the traditional way of studying. They considered that via role-play they got engaged with difficult topics through a more fun learning than the traditional one.

Keywords:

Video, learning, anatomy, veterinary.