TUES: Use of Video Production to Promote Collaborative Learning and Higher Level Cognitive Understanding in an Introductory Life Science Curriculum

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In this project students at UCLA are selected to enroll in a series of 3 seminar-style classes, one in each quarter, supplementary to their Introductory Life Science lecture and discussion course. In the classes, teams of students learn to produce short documentary videos on topics of societal interest in evolutionary biology, which they have researched in the literature and through conversations with experts on the UCLA faculty. Their improvement in high-level cognitive mastery compared to a matched control group is expected to increase their academic success and foster their retention in life science majors. Students are chosen from among those identified as underrepresented in STEM disciplines and who have experienced life challenges. Such students are particularly susceptible to abandoning STEM majors, so success in this program has a broad impact. In addition, the video products, developed collaboratively and with the help of graduate-student facilitators from theater, film, and television backgrounds, are shown to UCLA students majoring in other disciplines and to middle-school students. This project thus has an unusually broad impact.