Many students at AAU do not come from academically educated homes and may not all have the conditions to engage with the material in traditional ways. To reach everyone, it is necessary to work along several dimensions. I therefore wanted to introduce variation in my teaching to reach students who might not otherwise be engaged. At the same time, I wanted to strengthen their oral communication skills. 

Of the four principles for digitally supported learning, the following are relevant:

Variation:

Producing video introduces variation, both by training oral communication instead of the more common written formats and by requiring students to work actively with a different medium than usual.

Collaboration: 

Producing a video is a strong collaborative task in which all group members are included.

Co-determination and Empowerment:

No one can remain passive in this exercise, which makes the learning community more active. At the same time, students gain substantial influence over the expression and content of the final product and can therefore experience a degree of co‑determination.

Inclusion: 

This exercise makes it possible to include students who may not naturally thrive in strongly text‑based academic contexts.

(You can read about their content below, and otherwise, you can see more here: https://www.iaspbl.aau.dk/projects/principles-for-digitally-supported-pbl)

1. Variation: Students are motivated and learn in different ways, which is the reason why variation can benefit all students in the form of multiple approaches to learning, lecturing, and education. In this context, the digital can help expand the scope of possibilities for education and support variation as a principle at multiple practical levels.
2. Collaboration and Openness: Digital technologies enable new types of collaboration that extend beyond the individual course or project work, making it easier to open up to other stakeholders, a larger number of participants, create cross-collaboration, or envision entirely new forms of cooperation.
3. Co-determination and Empowerment: Digital technologies can support empowerment and help increase student co-determination beyond project work. They can enable larger and more active learning communities that involve both students and educators in the individual programs, but also across them.
4. Inclusion: Digital technologies can contribute to supporting the work of creating inclusion through a conscious focus on accessibility, diversity, and flexibility. The principle aims to make educational and teaching activities available to all students and also ensure that the individual student has a sense of being able to participate with their individual premises.

The entire teaching programme consisted of 27 lessons in total. The present example comes from one of these lessons, which had a built-in exercise where students  were asked to produce a video. They were first presented with theory in a lecture room. They then moved to their group areas.

Here, they were asked to operationalise what they had heard by producing a video‑based discussion. Specifically, they had to discuss why Russia invaded Ukraine. The discussion was conducted as a role‑play, allowing different arguments and perspectives to emerge. For example as a debate on Deadline or by Clement Kjærsgaard with participants representing left‑ and right‑wing political positions.

The groups consisted of five students. One was responsible for filming, one acted as director, one served as moderator, and two were debaters. The submission module in Moodle was used, and student instructors were attached to provide feedback.

It is a great group exercise because all members are needed, and no one can be inactive.

We spend a lot of time on written assignments and projects but do not train oral communication as much. This exercise addresses that.

Role-playing can perhaps be a help for some to overcome the insecurity regarding whether they know the material. Especially in the first semester when they are also new to each other. When you are just playing a role instead of being yourself, it may be easier to participate. The role also gives permission to consider all sides of the issue, even the unrefined ones, which can still be academically interesting to discuss. At the same time, the exercise can make working with theory easier for the individual, because they only need to focus on their own role, which breaks the overall amount of academic content into smaller pieces.

For the lecturer, it is a pleasant variation to watch videos instead of always seeing written assignments. You can also see if they have had fun with it. That rubs off on the lecturer.

Digital tools like this make university life more enjoyable for students, which is an important goal because you both learn and feel better when you enjoy yourself.

Feedback can be resource‑intensive. It is currently outsourced to student assistants, but I aim to work with peer feedback in the future.

• Do not worry about whether students have the skills to make films with their phones. I have used this exercise for five years and have only experienced one case where a group lacked the technical skills. They submitted a Word file instead. 
• Groups must be formed in advance, so time is not wasted on this. 
• Clear instructions are essential; otherwise, the activity will go in too many directions and risk failing to provide the intended learning outcome. The content of the exercise should be clearly linked to course material that students must apply. My instructions were uploaded to Moodle and can be seen below under relevant material. 
• A time limit for the videos is important. My recommendation is a maximum of three minutes; otherwise, reviewing them becomes too resource‑intensive. 
• The exercise The exercise works well in the first semester.