Abstract:

Video is an exciting tool for Higher Education as current students are entirely immersed in information and communication technologies. The visual aspect is particularly relevant for them since information enters mainly through sight. Students are very used to watching videos through social media, mainly for leisure and fun reasons. Therefore, audiovisual material is a tool teachers and lecturers can use to capture students' attention. Videos in education can be used for various purposes: as introductory material to content, to explain in more detail a more complex specific aspect of a topic (theory pills), to explain an entire topic, or more extensive content (large videos). Considering these concerns, several videos have been prepared in this work to gain the most of the positive features audiovisual material can offer for educational purposes. The reason is that in previous years, lecturers detected that many students arrived at the laboratory sessions without having read the work material previously available through LMS platforms, such as Moodle2, and without knowing what the practice consisted of. Such an attitude requires an urgent intervention, and the main idea of using videos is to familiarize students with the practical task before arriving in the laboratory. As such, they will know beforehand the objectives of the session, the equipment they have to handle, and the work they must develop. A second objective, no less important, is that the introductory videos incentivized students to read and study the material available on Moodle2 (a practical guide in a PDF document). In this way, before coming to labs, they would understand not only the theoretical foundations of the laboratory session but also the operating procedures and the goals to be achieved. This activity cannot be considered fully integrated into a Flipped Learning strategy since no content was previously worked as homework and later discussed in class. However, it constitutes an introduction to what will be worked on in a laboratory class. Thus, it can be considered that the strategy developed would constitute the first phase of a broader Flipped Learning strategy.

In the previous year, a preliminary proof of concept was carried out with only one video dedicated to introducing a Chemical Process Control laboratory practice [1]. The results were promising, with the students having watched the video describing the experience as very positive. Driven by this highly welcomed preliminary experience, more extensive work was carried out in the present work, preparing videos for 6 of the 9 lab practices included in the syllabus. This allowed a comparison between students' performance with and without the preliminary supported video material. For this purpose, the lecturers prepared a list of 5 questions to gather whether or not the students arrived at the laboratory having understood the fundamental aspects of the session. The list of questions was applied during all practice sessions. The lecturers had scores for each pair of students in practices with and without videos. A survey was also designed for students to comment on this initiative.

Reference:
[1] E. Romero, J. Remón. Recording and editing educational videos: comparative evaluation of available free software and an example of use. Proceedings of the 15th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI2022), 7th-9th November 2022, Seville (Spain), pp. 8340-8345. doi: 10.21125/iceri.2022.2183.

Keywords:

Video, lab-class preparation, introductory pills, student engagement.