Fostering Student Engagement through Recorded Content Discussions
by Todd Tussing, DNP, RN, CENP, NEA-BC
Assistant Clinical Professor
Moving students toward performing at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy on written assignments can be challenging. The effectiveness of an online discussion-board post/respond-to-post cycle has its limits because students approach discussion-board assignments in different ways and with varying levels of engagement. As the instructor for HCINNOV 7521, Best Practices in Organizational Operations, I replaced the weekly student post/respond-to-post assignment with an assignment I call Recorded Content Discussion. 7521 is a graduate-level course designed to give students an introduction to organizational best practices including strategic planning, Strengths/Weakness/Opportunities/Threat (SWOT) analysis, budget development, resource allocation, and quality improvement. The learning objectives for this assignment are:
- Students will analyze components of the weekly instructional content (lectures, readings, videos, and assignments) and their application to real-world, high-reliability healthcare organizations.
- Students will evaluate components of the weekly instructional content against their own experiences.
CC BY-SA4.0 Andrea Hernandez “New Bloom’s Pyramid”
Rather than writing a discussion-board post, students come together in a Zoom meeting room in groups of 4-5 at the end of a category of content (e.g., strategic planning, finance, etc.) for a group discussion. Each student brings 2- 3 points they have identified from any portion of the lecture, videos, or readings for that content category. After starting the recording of the meeting, each student introduces their points to the group for consideration and discussion. Several prompts have been developed to help guide the students to identify their points and guide the discussion.
- some new information that has intrigued you (i.e.., surprisingly new to you)
- something you disagree with or have reservations about
- something that you believe you strongly support
- something that you have experienced in the real world (good or bad experience)
- something you have limited knowledge/experience about and how you’d like to gain additional experience
RECORDED CONTENT DISCUSSION (instructions for students)
Students are asked to keep the recording length between 20-45 minutes (most were about 30 minutes) and to have one student of the group upload the recording to the Carmen Assignment tab after the discussion. When I watch the videos while grading, I type comments reflective of the student discussions into a separate document and paste those comments into the Speed Grader Comment section as feedback for the individual student groups. Students have made very positive comments regarding the Recorded Content Discussions. One student said in an email message to me, “During and after our recorded discussions (and from your feedback), we all feel a great increase in information retention, strategic and divergent thinking, and mindfulness about our healthcare system” (shared with permission). A comment on the end-of-semester Student Evaluation of Instruction stated, “The recorded discussions were very helpful in understanding concepts and stimulating thinking. That was my favorite part of the course.”
Measurement of student achievement of the assignment objectives was accomplished through watching the student conversations on the videos. Conversations that incorporated the course content in comparison or contrast to students’ previous experiences or to high-reliability organizations demonstrated use of applying, analyzing, and evaluating according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. Additionally, students used this time together to pose questions and ask for clarification of course content to their peers, offering an opportunity for students to teach the content to each other. To supplement the conversations, instructor comments were typed and pasted into the Comment box of SpeedGrader. Instructor comments were based on the points of the student conversation, which provided an opportunity for instructor clarification and supplementation of what was being shared in the group.
Throughout the course, students voiced positive comments about the recorded discussions and stated they preferred it over the post-respond to post assignments utilized in previous courses. No negative comments were offered during conversations with students or in any feedback provided about the course itself. Observing the positive response of the students and the quality of the Recorded Content Discussion, the decision has been made to utilize this new approach with students in the course moving forward. After reviewing the total experiences of the course, one change under consideration is to combine two of the course categories to decrease the total number of Recorded Content Discussions from seven to six (eliminating the one at the end of the course during which two other assignments are due at the same time).
