An hour-and-a-half-long business calculus lecture may not seem so bad when Brad Pitt teaches the lesson.
The advent of the digital age has meant more than just Noteswap and Moodle for college education. More and more professors have found ways to integrate entertainment media into their lessons.
A teacher of 33 years, business calculus professor Dottie Vaughn began using videos and music in her class as a way to keep the attention of 800 students when she first started teaching in the Cox Auditorium seven years ago.
“Anything to try to break the monotony of, you know, ‘I’m working a problem, I’m working a problem, I’m working a problem,’ helps,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn picks songs from her library of ’60s and ’70s rock to match each lesson: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps” for the Three-Step Rule, a double dose of The Eagles with “Take It to the Limit” for limits and “The Long Run” for limits to infinity, The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” for complex and confusing derivatives.
Vaughn also pulls from her DVD collection. Scenes from movies like “The Shawshank Redemption,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “A Good Year” and “French Kiss” make appearances in many of her lectures. Brad Pitt argues about business strategy with Anthony Hopkins in “Meet Joe Black” to illustrate maximizing profit and contemplates a trade in “Moneyball” in an example of integration by substitution.
“If they get particularly beleaguered, or they’ve had a bad test, I’ll use ‘Chariots of Fire’ to inspire them,” Vaughn said.
Psychology professor Tyler Renshaw approached his first year at the University with an iTunes arsenal of soft acoustic ballads. Ben Howard, The Civil Wars, John Mayer and Mumford & Sons mixed with folk covers of pop songs greet students at the beginning of every class.
“I try to pick things that are calming,” Renshaw said. “It sort of sets the atmosphere for the kind of class I want to teach.”
Renshaw said he believes entertainment media can be a powerful way for students to engage in the lesson and connect it to real life. For an extra credit opportunity, Renshaw encourages students in his social psychology class to bring in songs and movie clips that demonstrate concepts from his lessons.
“It’s a good way to show students that what we learn goes past the door,” Renshaw said. “It’s hard to apply what we learn when looking at ourselves, but we can identify things in what we watch and go from there.”
Coordinator of French Business & Media Arts Jean Brager picked up the technique he calls “edutainment” during his training in France in the late ’90s from a professor who began every class with an operatic vocal piece and ended it with a clip from a classic silent film. Now Brager’s classes often feature French commercials from YouTube as well as excerpts from iconic French movies and songs.
“It enables them to connect with the word, and, in the case of French or any other foreign language, without the frustrating need to translate,” Brager said.
Like Brager and Renshaw, Vaughn considers this practice valuable in making the material in her course more accessible.
“I always try to have the mindset of trying to make calculus as friendly and as familiar as possible to the students,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn kicks off the first class of each semester with the opening scene from “Starman,” which features an alien trying to learn about earth upon its first visit but having trouble communicating. This scene, Vaughn hopes, will be relatable to nervous students unfamiliar with calculus.
“My point is, OK, I can understand this is all frightening to you, but you’re going to have to learn how to communicate with the program as well as understand what I’m trying to do here for you,” Vaughn said.
According to Vaughn, her unorthodox approach helps the material stick with students.
“I’ll be out getting pizza and a student will come up to me and say, ‘I heard that song the other day, and I thought about derivatives,’” Vaughn said.
‘It’s a good way to show students that what we learn goes past the door.’
Students in Dottie Vaughns business calculus class watch a clip of the movie "French Kiss" Tuesday afternoon in the Cox Auditorium to illustrate the limits of anxiety that the students might be facing before their first computer based test.
