THEA 474: Digital Animation—A Peer Review of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio

This portfolio provides an overview of student learning in my Digital Animation course - THEA 474. This report serves as documentation of my attempts to define and refine the course goals, activities, assignments, and assessment. Through this portfolio, I hope to more effectively see ways to make this course more impactful for the students, but also to lay the groundwork for additional courses within the major in order to open up a more realized and robust animation focus at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre & Film. A facet of student learning that I plan to document and improve upon is how to effectively teach the technical and creative parts of the course. I chose this course because it is the only instruction currently available to those students with an interest in designing, creating, and animating within a 3D environment. As such, the course has tended to become a bit overwhelming for the students as I try to impart as much broad-based knowledge into a single semester. Further complicating things, since it is an elective, the students bring to the table a wide range of technical abilities as well - from very little computer knowledge to extensive understanding of computers and directory structures. The wide range of abilities of the students coming into the course has been problematic for me in crafting fair objectives that are achievable by all. Developing successive assignments that build upon each other is something I am keenly interested in as I help them to become more comfortable in 3D space - all the while understanding that not all of them intend to pursue animation any further than this singular course