Towards more efficient teaching

The enclosed study provides analysis and describes experiences from teaching the subject “Audio and video processing” conducted at the Teachers´ Academy at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. During the first year of the collegium, audio processing was performed using the application “Audacity”, and video by Adobe Premier CS4. Processing of the materials was done using examples assigned by a teacher. Some changes were introduced in the following two years of the collegium. Besides the work described above, students were tasked with a creation and development of an idea for a short movie, recording and editing of the material. The final product was a film 3-10 minutes in length. This approach led to a better success rate among the students: from GPA 3.52 (at the scale 1-5; σ = 0.83, N=29; 2 students did not pass; average number of exam attempts per student was 1.79, σ = 1.05) to 4.33 (σ =0.80, N=21; 2 students did not pass; average number of exam attempts per student was 1). Evaluation of teachers by students performed as a part of the official institutional evaluation also changed: “Classes encourage interaction and team work among students” went from 3.63 (σ = 1.11) to 4.0 (σ = 0.89); “My work during the semester was regularly evaluated and graded” went from 4.07 (σ =0.94) to 4.83 (σ =0.47); “Tasks corresponded with the contents of the collegium” went from 3.89 (σ = 1.15) to 4.33 (σ =0.82); “Grades received during the semester have impact on the final grade at the exam” improved from 4.25 (0.80) to 5.00.