My focus is on Course Design Pitfall #4 Expect you students to consume knowledge rather than create it. The course I am developing for hybrid learning is a digital arts studio course focused on narrative storytelling. In this course students learn about screenwriting, storyboarding, shot composition, editing for story and animation from several lectures and tutorials. They then apply all aspects of preparation for production to their very own large scale creative project based on their very own story. In this way they not only become familiar with the concepts and terminology associated with the storytelling creative industry, they also get and opportunity to create their own and have a significant portfolio piece for graduation.
Preproduction has a fairly steep learning curve in terms of the digital art tools and I provide several pre-recorded software tutorials for students. This gives the students a fairly large tool kit to choose from when they produce their animatics for the end of term. In order for students to create their own knowledge rather than consume it I will have them talk to each other regularly in class during our face-to-face time through a series of project check-ins. This activity is where students get into small groups and chat about their own approaches to to making their project. This is also an opportunity for students to talk about creative problems they are having and helping each other solve technical issues. Through these group activities/check-ins my hope is that students will create their own knowledge with each other as they choose the best techniques for their large scale creative project. Students will forge their own creative path and technical approach to digital storytelling in a linear narrative format.
I do a lot of peer-to-peer or small group critique/discussion and sharing in my classes. One technique I’ve started doing lately is having each of the groups create a curated list of ‘learned moments’ or ‘discussion summaries’ that they then share back to the rest of the class. I keep track of the little gems I had’t considered or ideas that are repeated and add these to my end of the week, end of the module or end of the project ‘learned moments’ review. Students like to see that have contributed to the courses ‘learned moments’.