Building a Learning Community: Students Teaching Students Using Video Podcasts

Abstract

Typically education is a process that is done to students. The work reported here relates to students who collaborate in the education process so that they become educators of later students. This collaboration takes the form of development of re-usable learning objects (RLOs) that are firstly used to assess each student’s understanding, but which are then to be used for the education of subsequent cohorts. This approach is based on a range of pedagogic concerns with motivational and social aspects of teaching. Students are given the options of producing a written or a video assignment. They make this decision in the knowledge that their work will be used to instruct students who will come after them. The video is relatively short at 5 – 10 minutes in length. Once assessed the video is added to a library for later use. Students report that they enjoy these assessments and that it is valuable to see the work of previous students.