Over the last 10 years, growing numbers of faculty in Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington have incorporated use of video media to enhance teaching and improve student access. This includes pre-recorded videos that students view as part of flipped classroom instruction. But more recently (initially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic), many of our faculty have adopted classroom recordings as a means to expand student access and provide a supplementary educational resource. However, due to concerns over dwindling attendance, as well as the effort required to make videos, many on our faculty have expressed mixed opinions about adopting these recordings as a general practice.
This talk describes our department's collective experience with the use of video media, including the motivations for using it, how we have evaluated its efficacy, processes we have used as a faculty to reach consensus on its general use, and what we have done to support faculty in creating classroom recordings that honor variations in teaching pedagogy. These experiences have led to a broad consensus among our faculty that for many of the courses we offer, video media provides students with a highly valuable resource that has overall positive educational benefits. These include expanded mechanisms for engagement, increased opportunities for active learning, higher levels of formative assessment and descriptive feedback, reduced student anxiety, and greatly enhanced equity, inclusion, and student access.
