Slides from invited presentation at the Creativity in Science Teaching organised by the Society for Experimental Biology. The talk showcased work at the University of Leicester in which second year students produce short videos on bioethics topics as an assessed activity.

1. Student-generated videos:
An authentic assessment
Creativity in ScienceTeaching (SEB, Dec 2016)
Dr Chris Willmott
Dept of Molecular
and Cell Biology
University of Leicester
cjrw2@le.ac.uk

2. Overview
• Context: geographical and disciplinary
• Multimedia in bioethics teaching
• Video-production assignment
• Some advice on running similar tasks
• Examples of student films

3. Context: Leicester
• University of Leicester
School of Biological Sciences
• Second Year Undergraduates
- All Biologists (n ~300)
- Medical Biochemists (n ~40)

4. • “Students should expect to be confronted by
some of the scientific, moral and ethical questions
raised by their study subject, to consider
viewpoints other than their own, and to engage in
critical assessment and intellectual argument.
Graduates should be comfortable with dealing
with uncertainty.”
• “Recognise the moral and ethical issues of
investigations and appreciate the need for ethical
standards and professional codes of conduct.”
QAA Benchmarking: Bioscience

5. All honours graduates MUST have
“an appreciation of ethical issues and how they
underpin professional integrity and standards”
A typical honours graduate WILL be able to
“construct reasoned arguments to support their
position on the ethical and social impact of advances
in the biosciences”
QAA Benchmarking: Bioscience

6. • Multimedia (esp visual media) can be integrated into
teaching about bioethics in variety of ways
Broadcast clips Video production
News analysis
Multimedia in Bioethics Education
Flipped lectures

7. Film production
• Since 2008
• Require students to produce films
• Work in teams of ~ 4 (set by me)
• Make 3-5 min video on allocated topic
• Best films are made available
more broadly via YouTube
(linked from Bioethicsbytes)
www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com

8. Film production
• Concerns that “you cannot say
anything meaningful in 5 minutes”
not substantiated
• Rare opportunity within biology curriculum for
students to express creativity
• Genuine team activity rather than just “group work”

9. Teamwork ≠ Groupwork
• Although “groupwork” and “teamwork” often used
interchangeably there are differences in meaning
Groupwork = Multi-person
task, but might have been
completed relatively easily
by individual
Teamwork = task would
be hard or impossible for
one person on their own

10. Film production
• Concerns that “you cannot say
anything meaningful in 5 minutes”
not substantiated
• Rare opportunity within biology curriculum for
students to express creativity
• Genuine team activity rather than just “group work”
• Authentic Assessment

11. Authentic Assessment
• Term generally attributed to Grant Wiggins in 1989
• “Assessment that poses …intellectually interesting
and personally meaningful… questions, tasks or
problems [that] have value and interest beyond the
classroom ” (Frey et al, 2012:p13)
• “Assessment of learning… is conducted through ‘real
world’ tasks requiring students to demonstrate their
knowledge and skills in meaningful contexts ”
(Swaffield, 2011:p434)

12. Authentic Assessment
• Characteristics of authenticity include:
• Real-world relevance
• Meaningful
• Challenging
• Involve students in own research
• Knowledge construction
• Opportunity for “ownership”
• Generates product or performance
“Students as Producers”
• Collaboration/Teamwork

13. Genetic
enhancement
Topics
include
Bioethics
and Sport
Brain imaging
Egg donation
3-parent IVF
Gene
therapy
Transhumanism
Use of animals
in research
Xenotransplantation
Organ trading
Forensic
use of DNA
Cognitive
enhancement
Use of human
material
Pharmacogenetics
Ethical issues in
public health
Medical tourism
Genome editing
Resource allocation
Dual-use dilemma
Incidental findings
Vaccination
against HPV
Face transplant

14. Student films: Genre
Interviews
24hr News

15. Student films: Genre
Role-play

16. Student films: Genre
Animation

17. Student films: Genre
Finger puppets
VideoScribe

18. Student self-evaluation

19. Positive
• “Video project allowed us to research areas and topics
of science that were different, new, and exciting, and
also challenged us to using new equipment and
computer software ”
• “ The video project was interesting way of presenting
ideas on ethical issues and made sure preparation was
not last minute as with essays”
• “ A positive, enjoyable experience – was something
different than writing essays etc, and allowed us some
creativity, something I miss doing the ‘sciency’ (sic)
course that we do”
Student evaluation of exercise

20. Positive
• “Enjoyable doing video project as it was quite a
novel, creative form of assessment”
• “The video project was a good learning experience”
• “Video gave good and varied experience of working
in teams”
• “Video production was different and enjoyable”
• “The bioethics video was interesting and has I feel
helped me to obtain skills I did not have before as I
had never had to make and edit a video”
• “Video project was ace”
Student evaluation of exercise

21. Mixed
• “Whilst doing it I thought it was a bit of a pain to be
honest! But by the end I was quite pleased with the
result!”
• “Fun to do and spend time on, however… the marks
allocated for this project were disproportionate to the
amount of time and effort we had put in.”
Student evaluation of exercise

22. Mixed
• “Whilst doing it I thought it was a bit of a pain to be
honest! But by the end I was quite pleased with the
result!”
• “Fun to do and spend time on, however… the marks
allocated for this project were disproportionate to the
amount of time and effort we had put in.”
Negative
• “No more video assessment (we’re scientists not
media students)”
Student evaluation of exercise

23. • Digital video:
- Excellent way to boost engagement
- Develops transferable skills
- Produces resource for wider community
• Recommended equipment:
- HD quality cameras recording to SD card
- Tripods and external microphones
• Decide if you will accept submissions made using
GoAnimate, Videoscribe, PowToon, etc
• Don’t use their own names in role-play
• Award appropriate credit – this is not an easy task
If you wish to run this activity...

24. Student films (1)
Cognitive Enhancement
(2014, https://youtu.be/F7hjyaouSkw)

25. Student films (2)
Forensic Uses of DNA
(2010, http://youtu.be/NLpwVpuLIac)

26. Student films (3)
Mitochondrial Diseases and 3-Parent IVF
(2013, http://youtu.be/7xJcKa6QrBc)

27. Student films (4)
Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing
(2013, http://youtu.be/26jb7m8mkLs)

28. Student films (5)
Ethical Issues in Public Health
(2011, http://youtu.be/r3a7qAZvAsU)

29. Any Questions?
E-mail: cjrw2@le.ac.uk
Twitter: cjrw
Slideshare: cjrw2
Delicious: chriswillmott
Blogs: www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
www.biologyonthebox.wordpress.com
www.biosciencecareers.wordpress.com
www.lefthandedbiochemist.wordpress.com

30. References
Conway R et al (1993) Peer assessment of an individual’s
contribution to a group project Assessment and Evaluation in
Higher Education 18:45-56
Frey BB et al (2012) Defining authentic classroom assessment Practical
Assessment, Research & Evaluation 17 ISSN 1531-7714
Swaffield S (2011) Getting to the heart of authentic Assessment for Learning
Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice 18:433-449
Willmott C (2013) Headline Bioethics: Engagement with bioethics in the news
Bioscience Education 21:3-6
Willmott C (2014) Boxing clever: television as a teaching tool Times Higher
Education (28th August 2014)
Willmott CJR (2015) Teaching bioethics via the production of student-
generated videos Journal of Biological Education 49:127-138

31. Individual contribution to team
• One of the issues with groupwork tasks (including
genuine teamwork) = fair marks individuals
• Appropriately reward those who put most into
project
• Reduce unwarranted marks for “free riders”
• Various methods exist for deriving individual mark
• We have used scheme of Conway et al (1993)

32. Weighting students’ contributions
• Each student awards a mark of 1 to 5 to each
member of their team (inc themselves) for a number
of different criteria
• Average mark (= A):
Grand total (all scores for all students in team)
Number of student in team
• Individual student total (= B):
Sum of all that student’s scores awarded by
all team members (inc themselves)
• Weighting for individual student:
Individual total (B)
Average mark (A)

33. Weighting students’ contributions
• Criteria in video task:
• Research on the ethics of the topic
• Research on the science of the topic
• Administration
• Scriptwriting and planning
• Camerawork and filming
• Animation and other artwork
• “on screen” role
• Editing of the video

34. Potential problems
• We have found this system to work well, but…
• An individual making a large contribution to a high
scoring project can theoretically score >100%
• A student doing no work receives some credit