One of the ways I have changed in how I teach over the past seven years is that I continually try to make my course assignments more meaningful. For me, this translates into doing something that will have an impact outside of just personal development and knowledge. One of the major thrusts of my work in this area over the past four years has been to have my students create or contribute to projects that are viewable by the world at large.
One example of this is a documentary series called “Pseudoscience in Oklahoma,” which graduate students in my Science vs Pseudoscience course created last fall. The topics ranged from cryptids (the Oklahoma Octopus and Bigfoot) and hauntings to alternative medicine and conspiracies. I’m really proud of the work they did, and the fact that in the past 8 months these have been watched over 5000 times shows that other people agree.
The students currently in the class are working on new ones which should be up in January 2013, so stay tuned for more!
