When fourth year KPE student Danoush Todjar wanted to put the strength of his learning to the test, he turned to one person he knew would be an excellent judge: his 76-year-old grandfather.
Not because his grandfather has a strong grasp of physiology; rather, precisely because he doesn’t.
In Professor Jenna Gillen’s class, KPE 371: Lifestyle and Metabolic Disease, Todjar and classmate Malieka Shahid teamed up to fulfill a knowledge transfer assignment that involved creating a 10-minute video. The purpose of the class assignment was to challenge students to advance public access to emerging science and inspire movement for healthy living.
“A primary goal of conducting our research is for the public to understand and benefit from it. Effective knowledge translation is an important skill for students and professors, but it’s not necessarily easy nor often taught in the classroom,” said Gillen.
“Some of the assignments were so good that it’s a shame that the teaching assistants and I are the only ones who get to watch it.”
Todjar’s and Shahid’s submission was among the exceptional. Their video explored the effects of stair climbing on metabolic health. It was especially relevant for Todjar’s grandfather, a longtime diabetic.
“My grandfather’s condition is what got me excited about this course. At first, he was shocked by how everything I’m learning is applicable to his life. Whatever I learned in class, I shared with him, including the importance of walking after a meal and doing sit-to-stand exercises,” said Todjar.
As he and Shahid worked on putting their stair climbing research findings into accessible, non-scientific language, Todjar considered how he would explain the concepts to his grandfather. “I did the presentation for him first in Persian but when I was trying to explain it in English, I did it in a way that didn’t use scientific terms. If I saw that there were some parts he couldn’t understand, I knew I needed to try to further explain it.”
In the resulting video, Shahid and Todjar take turns narrating over a series of compelling and visually appealing Google Slides.
“We worked hard to keep the language simple so anyone without background knowledge on the topic can understand the research. We found that the best way to do that was to explain words or terms that aren’t found in normal speech. I tried to make these descriptions two sentences maximum and the extra 10-15 seconds for each was well worth it,” said Shahid.
Another project that stood out for Gillen was a video created by students Sharmeen Minhas and Sarah Cao Huang. Their submission shared the effects of a sedentary lifestyle on metabolic health and showcased how ideas like “exercise snacks” can be effective strategies for making physical activity part of anyone’s lifestyle.
Overlaying the well-defined concepts in easy-to-understand language are illustrations that come to life as Minhas and Huang narrate the video.
“We know from our own experiences in lectures that PowerPoints can get a bit repetitive, so we wanted to make it more interesting. We used to watch a lot of ‘Draw My Life’ videos that were popular on YouTube when we were younger. Sarah suggested the idea for this project and I thought it would be creative,” said Minhas.
Taking inspiration from similar videos, including from asapSCIENCE, Huang put her drawing skills to the test for the project. She quickly recognized that the pictures would need to be simple to come to life quickly for each slide. “After a couple more complicated pictures, I pivoted to stick figures,” she said.
When they had conducted and synthesized the research into concise language, the pair created a storyboard to break down each of the slides. “We focused on the parts of research that would be applicable to the general public and skipped anything that was more academic. This allowed us to come up with drawings that are relatable to the subject and the audience,” said Minhas.
When the assignment was complete, they noted that they put considerably more effort into it than they would have for a more standard PowerPoint presentation. “Even though it was more work, it was a lot more beneficial to our learning,” said Minhas.
Another perk was that their professor was blown away.
“What stood out about these assignments is that they were engaging and evidence-based. The students effectively communicated complex research findings in a compelling way that’s easy to understand by everyone,” said Gillen.
“In addition to the value that videos like these can provide, it’s also beneficial for other students and researchers to see strong examples of effective knowledge translation and science communication.”