Students creating videos for learning by teaching from their scientific curiosity

ABSTRACT

Background

Given the scarce but promising practice of educational interventions based on the creation of teaching materials by students, Bikos Project has been designed.

Purpose

This article presents and assesses Bikos Project. Pairs of students cooperatively create video tutorials from questions that arise from their scientific curiosity. Four research questions were addressed: (1) Do students improve their specific knowledge about the question?; (2) Do students perceive improvements in their learning?; (3) What do students attribute their learning to?, and (4) How do students evaluate the project?.

Sample

The project was carried out in two primary schools, with 44 sixth-grade students (i.e. 23 girls and 21 boys aged 11–12 years old), who were grouped in pairs. Each of the 22 pairs of students created two video tutorials.

Design and methods

A one-group pretest-posttest design was carried out to identify possible improvements in their specific knowledge, and an online survey was administered at the end of the project to gather student perceptions.

Results

The pretest-posttest shows that students significantly improve their specific knowledge about the questions. They perceive these improvements in specific knowledge, and in other areas of learning, including those related to information searching and the use of technological tools. Mainly, they attribute their learning to choosing the question and to the help from the partner. Digital technologies, cooperative learning, and learning about their questions were positively valued, while time investment, and difficulties when searching for information and recording the voice-over were underlined.

Conclusion

It seems that the learning benefits of the project are not limited to the specific knowledge about the question, but also involve other areas. However, it is necessary to avoid that the technological aspects of the project monopolize all the attention and deviate it from the main challenge: transforming information into knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Active learning
• educational video
• learning by teaching
• science education
• teaching materials

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the teachers from the two schools that carried out the project with their students, as well as the two colleagues from the research group who helped during the implementation of the project and the validation of the rubric.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training under Grant FPU18/01663 for the training of university teachers; Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional.