PSIV-6 Enhancing engagement and transition in animal science through animated videos and collaborative note-taking.

Abstract First-year students transitioning into college curriculum and adulthood may become overwhelmed and add to attrition rates. Developing teaching methods to further increase student engagement and sense of community within the classroom may ease transition. Students learn and process information in many ways, collaborative notetaking encourages peer teaching and additional interactions with the material, whereas pre-lecture videos flip the classroom, allowing students to learn at their own pace. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of these techniques on student engagement and motivation. Students (n=89) enrolled in Introduction to Animal Science were administered the Felder and Solomon Index of Learning Styles (ILS) questionnaire during the first week and were assigned small groups based on contrasting results. Lecture topics were divided into 12 sections and groups were expected to submit personalized comprehensive notes including outside research. In addition, students were given access to a set of 10 short videos (≤ 5.5 min) that covered digestive physiology prior to lecture. At the end of the semester, a 12-item Likert scale survey was administered on Qualtrics to assess the impact of the collaborative notes and pre-lecture videos (65.1% response rate). A second ILS questionnaire was administered during week 15 to examine whether students self-reported a shift in learning styles after completing course activities (74.1% response rate). A paired t-test was conducted in R (version 4.4.1) to compare means between initial and final ILS scores, assessing whether a significant change occurred over time. Our analysis revealed that there was no significant shift in learning styles from the beginning to the end of the semester (P ≥ 0.10). Amongst the 4 ILS dimensions, our population had a strong preference for reflective, visual, sensing and active learning styles. Mean averages from the Likert scale survey showed that 34.4% of students were neutral about collaborative notetaking being a useful tool when studying for exams, however they agreed or strongly agreed (46.5% and 27.5%, respectively) that the guidelines and external resources provided for the activity were useful. Students agreed (46.5%) or strongly agreed (39.6%) that the pre-lecture videos helped them grasp new concepts and retain information. Overall, the results from the survey showed that the combination of collaborative notes and videos made students feel motivated, confident, and excited about learning course material. Future research should focus on the effectiveness of these methods on student chosen groups and expand pre-lecture videos to more topics.