Using video reports to promote active engagement in learning

The expectation of today’s paying customers is of ‘teaching’ not ‘learning’ and sadly, even a mild spell of disengagement can quickly lead to an unwelcome request for a course transfer. This paper describes how rising wastage rates encouraged a large engineering department to review the first year curriculum and this resulted in the introduction of an innovative new problem-based module sitting alongside traditional engineering units. The new module features several team project assignments and a series of skills workshops. All the learning scenarios were designed to improve study competences, to add interest and enjoyment and to address the gulf in attitude to learning that exists between staff and students. This paper concentrates on just one of the assignments, which was designed to encourage teamwork and improve fundamental knowledge of machines and systems. It shows, through survey data, how a novel video reporting approach that has proved both exciting for the students and efficient for staff was used to stimulate, present and assess the learning.