Animating your class: engaging students and enhancing learning with animation technology
Studies have shown that the introduction of digital resources within the classroom can stimulate learning and increase student motivation. Instructional videos can help students to retain more information, understand concepts more rapidly and be more engaged.
Animation is seen as one successful way in which to get visual/aural learners to engage more with the material. In addition, animation serves to motivate students, ensuring that they are more engaged in the learning process.
This project set out to assess the effectiveness of using animation as a way of engaging students and enhancing their learning. In particular, the project focused on the use of animation software to develop animated video explainers as an alternative/supplement to traditional lecturing.
An experimental group were shown animation clips. A second group served as a control group. Both groups were assessed the following day and one week later, using a MCQ format to evaluate the extent to which the students retained the material. Students were also asked for their feedback on learning with animation.
Depending on the overall assessment of the project, it was envisaged that animation could be more widely adopted as a means of partial instruction at other levels and in other disciplines across the Institute.
To view John’s presentation at Digital Week click here.