Video Presentation in Statistics
Academic Division: Mathematics, Natural, and Health Sciences
Original: Oral Presentation into Video presentation with live Q&A
In MATH 115M/115L Statistics with Tutorial and Lab, a mathematics professor challenged her statistics students to create and edit short video presentations as an alternative to traditional oral and slideshow formats. Advancing to the Augmentation level of the SAMR model, students carefully selected core ideas to articulate and paired them with imagery to enhance audience understanding and engagement. With the short-form video requirement limiting artifacts to no more than five minutes, students were encouraged to be deliberate in scripting and planning their projects. This assignment pushed them out of their comfort zones to present confidently on camera while honing their skills in synthesis and concise communication.
Connecting Data and Sustainability in Video
Student Deliverables
Assignment Summary
The original assignment tasked students with researching a local sustainability issue, developing a solution, and incorporating mathematical concepts into an oral proposal presentation. In the redesigned project, the objective remained unchanged, but students were challenged to convey their proposals through a concise and engaging video presentation limited to five minutes.
Instructor's Comments
Redesign effectiveness: 5/5, Highly EffectiveThrough this assignment, the students were able to put together then present to their peer a series of complex mathematical and statistical analysis, based on real world data (as opposed to made up data). By requiring them to present their reports via video, the final project assignment leads students to be more thoughtful in understanding the materials, in sharing the ideas, and in preparing the final audio and visual presentation.
Value added to the learning content: 5/5, Highly ValuableLearning math is usually culminating in regurgitating the computational process in a sterile final exam paper. But the larger and more lasting value of math is quantitative reasoning and that application should be done in the real world. That process is messy, but it should be the norm, if we want the impact of the learning to be valuable. The creative process of the final presentation allows for the students to practice the real world application of math, and gives them the freedom to explore the messiness of that application in a safe environment. Such an assignment could be a nightmare to assess, but the draft of the rubric provided by the Upena project made it easier to adopt this practice, and in the end, the finalized rubric made it simpler for instructors to assess students’ presentation.
Improvements for next implementation: I thought that the scaffolding went well, and provided students with necessary guardrails and milestones to explore the topics. I can’t think of any [improvements] at the moment.
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