Structure and Goals of the Homework Assignments
The weekly homework assignments acted as a precursor to the weekly
discussion activity. Homework assignments were intended to prepare
students for the discussion activities by reinforcing concepts covered
in class, linking course topics together, refreshing foundational
concepts covered in previous biology courses and/or illustrating
research applications of course topics. While the video homeworks and
in-class discussion activities focused on different scientists and
different research programs, they highlighted research on the same
general topic (ex: trade offs). Prior to the term included in this
study, the homework assignments consisted of multiple choice quizzes on
course topics but did not include online video.
In the fall 2019 term, students enrolled in the course (n = 356) were
given weekly homework assignments consisting of viewing one or two
online educational videos and responding to 7-8 multiple choice
questions relating to the video(s), which were accessed through the
course management system. Table 1 summarizes the demographics
of students enrolled in the course while Table 2 summarizes the
online videos used in the homework assignments. Videos were selected
from three common open-access sources for biology education: iBiology,
HHMI BioInteractive, and Bozeman Science. Because this was the first
term in which online video was incorporated into the weekly homework
assignments for the course, we sought to understand the student
perspective on the use of videos for learning ecology and evolution. To
that end, open-ended student feedback on the homework assignments was
gathered in two ways:
- Each homework assignment included the following voluntary, ungraded,
open-ended question: In the space below, please provide any
feedback you have on the video [title]. The more specific you can
be in your comments, the more helpful they will be for us. While your
answer is not anonymous, I value your honest feedback and both I and
the creators of the videos will use your comments to improve the
quality of educational videos produced and their integration into
courses like [name of course].
- The anonymous end-of-quarter course evaluations included the following
voluntary, open-ended question: The video homework assignments
were a new component of the course this quarter. Please comment on
your opinion of these assignments (whether positive or negative),
being as specific as possible.