Video deliverables

One of the things I love about IScience is the variety of different types of assignments we have to hand in (in IScience these are called deliverables by the way, just so you are in the know :)) rather than just the typical reports/essays, although there are a number of those too. At the end of our five week long core modules, we as IScientists have what is called deliverable week. Now, I must be honest, deliverable week is a week that most IScientists would like to forget is coming as it is pretty hard work! The number of IScientists camping out in the library tends to increase drastically as deliverable week gets closer!

IScience core modules are all set out in the same general manner and at the beginning of the five weeks we are given a module document. Included in our document are our very important problem statements. IScience is a research based problem based learning course and so these problem statements are what we use to guide our learning for the module. The first four weeks involve spending lots of time learning all the science content needed to work towards answering our problem statements. Each weekend we have a couple of smaller tasks to hand in but the big hand ins we have to do come at the end. At the end of the module we work closely in our groups to complete some sort of assignment that has been set in response to the problem statements.

As I mentioned, we have a number of different types of assignments which range from the traditional essays and presentations to websites, podcasts and even mock ups of a court rooms where you have to act as an expert witness! For example, this module we get to make a video on the climatic history of earth as part of a module called Earth through Time. This is especially exciting for me as it means I also get to be pretty creative as well. The only problem is, collectively my group has some pretty extravagant ideas and we tend to sometimes get a little carried away. . . Our deadline is next week and my group and I are pretty much now ready to start filming. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!