The Incubator bustled with energy and laughter as students tossed balls back-and-forth and enunciated their introductions. It was just the beginning of an animated workshop with students from Dr. Eve Wittenberg’s Harvard College writing seminar. Wittenberg—a Scholar in Residence at GHELI—is a preceptor for a first-year academic writing seminar titled Expos 20: What is Health?. Integrating approaches and concepts familiar to GHELI, the course weaves innovative teaching and learning tools to help students devise arguments and articulate positions.
For an upcoming assignment, Wittenberg’s students had to write an essay exploring whether they agreed or disagreed with World Health Organization’s definition of health—a task that requires crystallizing a specific argument and outlining a clear rationale. To jumpstart this process, students in the writing seminar split into small groups to record the thesis statements of their essay with the Incubator’s tiniest cameras.
“The smaller camera reduces the pressure many people feel while recording,” commented GHELI’s Multimedia Coordinator, Camilla Finlay. Prior to the workshop, Finlay tested multiple layouts and technologies to explore what would facilitate the best flow once students arrived. The primary goal was to hone in on a set-up that allowed students to record quickly and confidently in small groups, before turning to a laptop to review the footage with Incubator staff.
During these review sessions, Incubator staff helped students identify and clarify the core message of their thesis statement. What did they want to say? What did they wish they had added? Was there an evocative example they could amplify? Following feedback, students returned to the cameras to again record their central argument.
“Even though I wasn’t as articulate the second time around, I felt like my main point was clearer,” says one student. “I now have a better sense of what I want the rest of the essay to look like.”