Student video project as catalyst for critical thinking case studies
Presentation z link: http://z.umn.edu/criticalthinkingstudentvideo : Scott Spicer (spic0016@umn.edu - Twitter: @spicer007) : See also - Media Services Case Studies: http://z.umn.edu/mediacasestudies
How this project encourages critical thinking?
This student video investigation project required students to consider historical preservation criteria applied to case studies of buildings and districts to explore questions such as: What constitutes historic preservation? Should this case study be preserved? Who benefits/does not benefit from this case study being preserved?
By requiring students to surface multiple perspectives, while not being required to answer the question, the students are forced to wrestle with the complexity and nuance of historic preservation decision making.
See case study page for more details: https://z.umn.edu/historicpresvideo
Course: ARCH 4/5671 (Historic Preservation) Inst: Greg Donofrio Media Assignment Type: Video Investigation
How this project encourages critical thinking?
This student video investigation project required students to consider water, energy and environmental criteria applied to various issues related to public policy. Specifically, through this project students explore questions such as the scientific, economic, and political considerations.
By requiring students to surface multiple perspectives through video interview and mixed media, coupled with a public policy brief, the students are forced to wrestle and communicate the complexity and nuance of public policy decision making in these areas.
See case study page for more details: https://z.umn.edu/energypolicyvideo
Course: PA 5721 (Energy and Environmental Policy) Inst: Elizabeth Wilson Media Assignment Type: Video Investigation
How this project encourages critical thinking?
This low barrier media essay challenges students in an international educational policy class to challenge their assumptions on western viewpoints of educational policy when working on policy in developing nations. Prof. Shirazi accomplishes this by initially having his students at the very beginning of the semester produce a video with 3 images, responding to 3 questions related to their perceptions of international educational policy as a baseline. This captures both their philosophy, as well as their rationale for use of visual imagery (visual literacy) to describe their perspectives in multiple modes. Then, at the end of the semester the students create another video once again responding to the questions, thereby forced to reflect upon how their assumptions have changed as a result.
See video for more project details.
Course: OLPD 5080 (Special Topics/Gender, Education and International Development) Inst: Roosbeh Shirazi Media Assignment Type: Digital Media Essay
How this project encourages critical thinking?
This documentary style digital story project explores aspects of how water issues intersect with their own lives and/or those of others.
This project encourages critical thinking because it educates people on these topics that often do not receive a lot of media attention and further, often does so in surfacing case studies that challenge dominant narratives (e.g., a video that describes how many farmers are sensitive to their practices impact on the environment, with discussion of investments in new technologies to make more effective, sustainable use of water resources).
See also Water Sustainability website: http://www.cehd.umn.edu/PsTL/Water/
Course: PSTL 1906 (Water Sustainability) Inst: Linda Buturian Media Assignment Type: Digital Story (documentary style)
How this project encourages critical thinking?
This public service announcement (PSA) project was developed in a Public Health course, in collaboration with the MN Dept. of Health (WIC program), to encourage new mothers using those services to consider breast feeding as a fundamental aspect of newborn nutrition. In the following example, by getting out of the classroom and interviewing program participants, the students learned first hand what some of the barriers are that make breastfeeding difficult for low-income new mothers (e.g., familial preference for formula).
Course: PUBH 6902 (Maternal and Infant Nutrition) Inst: Jamie Stang Media Assignment Type: PSA
How this project encourages critical thinking?
In this project, students from a Global Families class interviewed individuals from various cultures to learn more about their family relationship dynamics. By watching a corpora of these videos, combined with a written analysis assignment, students learned to confront their assumptions that all cultural intrafamilial personal dynamics are the same.
Course: FSOS 3104 (Global & Diverse Families) Inst: Catherine Solheim Media Assignment Type: Ethnographic Interview
How this project encourages critical thinking?
In this project, students in an urban design course interviewed individuals living in various communities/spaces to dig deeper into how their identities help shape (and are shaped) by the environments in which they inhabit.
Course: DES 4/5165 (Design + Globalization) Inst: Tasoulla Hadjiyanni Media Assignment Type: Digital Story (documentary style)
How this project encourages critical thinking?
In this music course video/mapping project, students interviewed leadership members of a community mapped to locations, to explore how play is defined through the eyes of those who live in those communities.
Course: MUS 1905 (Mapping Arts Play) Inst: Akosua Addo Media Assignment Type: GIS Map/ Video Interview Overlay