Using video media to enhance conceptual learning in an undergraduate thermodynamics course

This project addresses the need for changing undergraduate chemical engineering education to take advantage of skills possessed by a media savvy generation of students. More specifically, millennials communicate through a broad range of technology from texting to mobile video conferencing. This project aims to leverage these skills, more specifically their affinity to watching online videos, to enhance conceptual learning in an introductory thermodynamics course. To this end, the collaborative team from Manhattan College, Bucknell University, and the University of Kentucky will have students: 1) develop an instructional video that teaches a concept in thermodynamics using common metaphors, and 2) watch a similarly constructed instructional video developed by peers. A thermodynamics concept inventory administered pre and post-treatment will measure students' conceptual learning. The first year implementation of this three year project tasked students to generate a video that teaches a thermodynamic concept. This activity centers on autodidactic learning, where students that are required to teach a topic must master it. The mean scores from all of the institutions revealed that there was no significant difference between the group who generated these teaching videos, and control. This may be attributed to the fact that students were tasked to generate a video on only one topic, rather than several covering a broad range. The second year of implementation tasks students to watch videos from all of the topics, and is the current focus of the collaboration.