Media Projects for Project-Based Learning in Higher Education
L. Melissa Spencer
Introduction
Project-Based Learning
Project-Based Learning (PjBL or PBL) is a realistic approach to inquiry-based learning. Projects allow students to apply complex, interdisciplinary knowledge and create final project artifacts to exhibit learning. (Ertmer & Glazewski, 2018) Projects can be completed alone or in a group. When in a group, the project and subsequent assessment create a formal cooperative learning experience where students work together over a period of time to complete the final product. (Johnson & Johnson, 2009)
College to Career
At Georgia State University, the current Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) is known as College to Career. This initiative is focused on building competencies in students that they will take with them into the workplace. Not only should students develop these competencies, but they should also be able to translate their learning and apply them to the real world. In this particular case, students focus on two competencies: Teamwork/Collaboration and Digital Technology.
Media, Culture, and Society
SCOM 2050 – Media, Culture, and Society is a high-level social communications course taught by Anita Canada for Georgia State Perimeter College’s associate program. The class is conducted online and in person on the Newton Campus. This course focuses on the connection between media and its cultural and societal impact. Students focus on various forms of media from throughout history, such as books, video and film, music, and much more. Students often take this course to fulfill general study credit requirements for their associate degree.
Overview of the Case
In SCOM 2050, Media, Culture, and Society; students are taught about the impact of media. The media immersion project (MIP) allows students to develop their research skills and learn how to use media to tell a narrative. There are various versions of the MIP project since Anita Canada started teaching the course. The version of the assignment we will discuss here is the multimedia group-work version of the assignment used from 2018 to 2019.
The Project
For the MIP assignment, students, working in groups of three to four, choose a topic to research and discuss two periods – one in the past (then) and one in the most recent decades (now). The topic should have some relationship to media, and students need to find cultural and societal impacts related to their topic. As an example: if a group wants to discuss feminism, they will look at past decades, like the 1960s and 1970s, and then they would look at now 2000s and 2010s.
Allowing students to choose their topic is an important aspect of this assignment. One of the goals of this assignment is to foster the understanding that research is about passion and having an interest in an idea gives them the motivation to go deeper.
Students are expected to answer questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how in relation to media, culture, and society for their topic. Students will then have the option to produce a website, video, or podcast discussing their research findings.
Challenges
Time Management: Students plagued by overstuffed schedules do not always devote the appropriate amount of time to an assignment. The MIP was a two-month-long assignment where the final product was due later in the semester. Students needed to choose their topic, conduct research, and design/produce their final product in that time.
Group Work: Projects completed in groups can go poorly when students lack the fundamental interpersonal skills necessary to complete a project.
Technology: While, as a society, we generally see younger people as tech-savvy individuals, this is not always the case. It’s not always the case that students enrolled in college programs are young. For this assignment, students were expected to design and produce some form of media that would best exhibit their research. Therefore, students needed to use skills they may or may not have.
Solutions Implemented
Time Management
An easy solution implemented was that of staggered due dates. Rather than making one final product due after two months, Canada split the assignment into. Each part needed to be completed and graded/approved before students could go on to the next part. Staggered due dates gave the students the structure they needed to take the project in steps and not be overwhelmed.
Part 1 – Topics: The topics chosen for this assignment need to meet certain criteria before receiving approval. 1:Topics had to be related to media, culture, or society. 2: Topics need to have some level of specificity. 3: Topics needed to be researchable. Outside of these three criteria, students can choose whatever topic interests them.
Part 2 – Research: Students needed to conduct their research and write a brief paper together reflecting on their resources. This paper was not meant to be lengthy. Rather it was meant to exhibit to the instructor that they had found sources and understood the major points of their topic.
Part 3 – Product Planning: Students submitted scripts and other planning for their final media products. These products were meant to help students organize their thoughts and assign tasks to each other to complete the assignment.
Part 4 – The Final Product: Students would present their final product to the class. They would discuss their research findings, how everything tied together, and why they chose their specific form of media to discuss their research.
The instructor also gave groups ample time in class to work on their assignments. Students discussed research and ideas in the classroom and would also have days in the computer lab to work on the papers and other products for the assignment. While students were expected to do some work outside of class, this time in class allowed the group to meet face-to-face and develop a rapport with other. (Janzen, 2021)
Group Work
Students do best with group work when there are certain criteria. Again, structure was key to ensure students understood the tasks needed to bring the project together. The students were given checklists to help them keep track of tasks and divide up the work among group members. (Bolt-Lee, 2021)
These checklists, created in conjunction with CETLOE, gave students clear guidelines for where they needed to be in the assignment at certain points throughout the semester. By answering specific questions about their media project the students were given control of major decisions of the project. If students were unsure, they could ask the instructor or training specialist for advice. Groups would turn in their checklists for approval and points towards their grade.
Canada also took time to discuss the importance of group work with students. Because teamwork/collaboration is one of the competencies of College to Career, Canada felt it was important that students gained effective collaboration skills during this assignment. Time was taken during class to share strategies for group work, so students understood the expectations of being a member of a group. Canada understood the importance of positive social interdependence in a group assignment and ensured that students exhibited those skills and the five elements of cooperation. (Johnson & Johnson, 2009)
Technology
Even before taking on Media, Culture, and Society as part of her course load, Canada was familiar with incorporating technology into her class assignments. Part of her success was due to her work with the Center for Excellence in Teaching Learning and Online Education and their technology education program. Instructors at Georgia State can request custom workshops for their courses and work with professionals to design projects and assignments that involve media.
Canada requested that a training specialist visit her course multiple times to offer students support during the assignment. Canada made time in her course curriculum for students to learn the technical skills and have the scaffolds they needed to complete the assignment. The training specialist completed five in-person visits to Canada’s classes.
Visit 1 – Project Introduction and Media Production: Students are introduced to the assignment and the training specialist during the first visit. The training specialist gives part of the presentation on the different media students can produce for their final article. There is a brief overview and a more in-depth look at websites as an option. The training specialist and instructor support groups in choosing a topic and their final product.
Visit 2 – Media Production Continued: In the second visit, which happens during the next class period, the training specialist continues their presentation on podcast and video production. The training specialist recommends podcasts and documentaries for students to view to get a feel for how they are structured.
During this visit, the training specialist and instructor further support choosing a topic and their final product. Students are given feedback on if their topic is too broad/narrow. The training specialist also provided practical advice about which product would work best for their topic and their group and individual schedules.
Visit 3 – Technology Overview: During this visit which generally happened after the paper was submitted, the training specialist went over students’ technology options. Groups creating websites were encouraged to use Edublogs and given instructions on setting them up for the assignment. Groups creating podcasts were recommended software, either Audacity or Anchor.fm, for completing their project. The training specialist provided tech advice and shared resources such as LinkedIn Learning and other help pages. Finally, groups that chose to make mini-documentaries were given options for video creation tools such as iMovie. All groups received information about equipment checkouts from the CATLab and links to project pages on AssignMedia. Students went to the computer lab to start working on their assignments during this visit.
Visit 4 & 5 – Review and In-Class Support: The last two visits the training specialist made to the class focused on providing as-needed support. Groups would work in the computer lab for most of the class. The instructor and training specialist would answer student questions about the assignment and receive feedback on their projects.
Outcomes
By ensuring that students focused on building time management, collaboration, and technology skills while also conducting interesting research, Canada was able to have her project meet work readiness standards for the College to Career initiative. Students understood how the skills learned for their project that was unrelated to their career goals could be generally transferred to real-world experiences.
Students also performed better compared to previous semesters with the inclusion of checklists to help them stay on track. While Canada incorporated hard and soft scaffolds in the form of due dates and visits from technology-support professionals, the checklist gave clear indicators regarding where they needed to be in the production of their media projects. It meant that students had work ready to receive feedback with enough time to make improvements.
Finally, students became better aware of their university resources through this assignment. Students could apply knowledge about equipment checkouts and AssignMedia to other classes and had the technical foundations to confidently take on other projects that involved media but may not have all the support used in this course.
Implications
This case study makes it clear that students enter higher education burdened with the assumptions that they have effective time management skills, understand how to work in groups, and are technically savvy. Because this isn’t always the case, group projects can become overwhelming and troublesome for students. Students at the beginning of the course often expressed a dislike for group projects because the factors discussed in this case were not properly addressed. Because Canada saw the bigger picture of the benefits students would gain from the assignment, she arranged the course around making the experience successful for the students. She addressed common issues with group assignments and had open discussions with her students about the strategies they would need to employ to be successful.
Works Cited
Bolt-Lee, C. E. (2021, September). Developments in Research-Based Instructional Strategies: Learning-Centered Approaches for Accounting Education. e-Journal of Business Education and Scholarship of Teaching, 15(2), 1-14.
Ertmer, P. A., & Glazewski, K. D. (2018). Problem-Based Learning: Essential Design Characteristics. In R. A. Reiser, & J. V. Dempsey, Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology, 4th ed. (pp. 286-295). New York: Pearson.
Janzen, K. (2021, September 20). The Perceived Efficacy of Cooperative Group Learning in a Graduate Program. The Canadian Journal for the Scholorship of Teaching and Learning, 12(1).
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2009). An Educational Psychology Success Story: Social Interdependence Theory and Cooperative Learning. Educational Researcher, 365-379.