Blurb | According to Cook-Sather (2010:555), “the most engaging, meaningful, and enduring education is that which affords students the opportunity to be actively involved – to be actors in their own learning." With this in mind, in 2017 I introduced an optional video project in Criminal Law 171, a compulsory year module for 1st/2nd year law students: Working in groups of five, about 1/3 of the class of 300 students handed in 60-90 second film clips illustrating and explaining Criminal Law-related concepts, cases or issues. Clips had to educate and inform their classmates about the law in an accurate, imaginative, entertaining, interesting and original way. There was a class screening with prizes for the best submissions, which were also made available on SUNLearn. A video project is definitely the type of intervention that could be considered by any academic who wants to give students an alternative – and creative – mechanism by which to demonstrate their learning (Willmott 2015). It involved minimal extra lecturer effort since it was voluntary and student-directed/driven. Assessment was fast and straightforward – the clips were short, group work cut down on the overall number of submissions, and the mark awarded was an all-or-nothing extra 2% credit added to the year mark of students who met the prescribed criteria. Introducing such a video project has a variety of potential benefits. Making film clips did indeed appear to encourage student-centred, active and collaborative learning. It gave students the opportunity to learn while they were teaching their peers and to reflect on the learning process. The group-work aspect of the project also promoted collaborative, cooperative learning. Its creative dimension helped challenge law students to move beyond their instinctive legal preference for the (left-brained) sequential and verbal, towards more (right-brained) visual, creative modes of learning, thus promoting a more “whole-brained", balanced learning orientation. My presentation will use selected excerpts from the student video clips to illustrate/demonstrate how my desired academic outcome of more holistic, inclusive and active learning has been achieved by this intervention. |