Engaging Students in Learning Science and Technology Using Students-Generated Educational Videos

The rapidly increasing use of digital media technologies offers students opportunities to represent science content in different ways. In this paper, we introduce an interdisciplinary and collaborative research project that engages students in learning both science and technology by developing educational videos for science explanation. In this project, students from the Digital Media course are paired with students from the Introductory Physics I course. They work together to create videos with blended digital media, such as images, animations, audio, and videos, to explain physics concepts and phenomena. The strategies for successfully conducting such an interdisciplinary project are discussed in the paper. The assessment results demonstrate the effectiveness of this project in student learning regarding understanding physics concepts, understanding the importance of digital media, and using digital media technologies. Results also show that this interdisciplinary project enhances students' communication skills and help them to learn skills and knowledge in the other STEM field by working together.