Strengthening Students Mechanics Knowledge through Instructional Videos of Hands-on Activities

Abstract

The use of hands-on activities has been proven in the past to be effective in teaching pedagogies. Recognizing this need, a first year Mechanics course at the University of Waterloo has already implemented the use of seven hands-on activities. Instructors of the course have found certain time limitations which results in students only participating in two of the seven activities. To continue improving student learning, instructional videos were developed to solve this problem. The techniques used for video development incorporate learning pedagogies to foster deeper learning throughout the viewing experience. These techniques include simulating experiential learning and reflective learning. In each video, a breakdown of the activity building and experimenting process is demonstrated. This is done through people physically interacting with the models as students would in the classroom. Accompanying the demonstration is an illustration of various mistakes students often make during the activities. Errors are discussed, and their outcomes are shown using course concepts to reinforce the appropriate processes. In addition, questions are posed to the viewers throughout each of the videos.

Systematic Approach to Teaching English Nouns in The Context of Private English Course Classroom Instruction

“…This findings supported the notion of Portes et al ( 2018) that vocabulary instructions should include intensive dialog between teachers and students and also promote interactive activities inside the classroom. The findings of this research strengthen the notion of (Gibson, 2018) in which vocabulary its concepts were reinforced through students reworking and hands-on activities. Unlike Gibson, the instructors in this research utilized sheets for students to rework the examples which were given in the middle of instruction and looking-up definition activities.…”

Mechanics Knowledge Enhanced with Videos Illustrating Concepts Experienced with Hands-on Activities

“…As described by [9], an important aspect of the videos was having them recreate the experience of the activities. This was achieved in part through focus during the planning stages on the student activity instructions.…”

“…Moreover, the planning for all videos included determining how to incorporate the use of images, text, and speech to help reinforce key concepts and improve retention. [9] proposed reflection as another key consideration during creation, along with its ability to help students deepen their understanding of mechanics concepts. This was addressed primarily by the inclusion of carefully considered questions, for which viewers are instructed to pause and reflect on.…”

“…The videos were further shaped by the intention that they may function as a study tool. [9] elaborated on how the videos were organized to follow the most logical order for targeted studying, which was based on the assumption that students would watch these videos to prepare for assessments. Moreover, in terms of length, steps were taken to ensure that all concepts were covered in the shortest amount of time to enable more efficient studying.…”