Hi Everyone!
This is mine and Nik’s website on Video Primary:
https://sites.google.com/view/videoprimary/home
Throughout our site, we provide an overview of how video can be integrated into classroom teaching. We emphasize its many benefits for student learning and engagement, including its ability to break down complex concepts into more accessible ideas and to support a wide range of learning styles. We particularly focus on the use of video in English and Science classrooms, offering examples of how it can be used to enhance learning in both subject areas.
Below are some discussion questions to reflect on:
- How do you use video in your subject area to support student learning?
- In what ways does incorporating video promote engagement and critical thinking among students?
- What challenges might teachers face when integrating video into their lessons? Are there solutions to these challenges?
- How can teachers ensure that students are truly learning from the videos? Rather than just passively viewing them.
( 4 upvotes and 0 downvotes )
Well done folks!
Reflecting on your question: How do you use video in your subject area to support student learning?
I really enjoyed how you connected it to your experience teaching English literature. I teach ELL and often do novel studies in my classes to support my students’ reading comprehension. I like to use videos that introduce or summarize key events, characters, or themes to really ensure their understanding. But most notably, I actually like to use ‘ambience videos’ while we read to help my students follow along and understand the settings. For example, when I’m teaching The Hunger Games, depending on the chapter, I will find a video that shows a generic setting of scene (ex: District 12, the Capitol, the arena, etc). As they may not understand each detail, the videos give them a foundation to go off of. They all really appreciate it, especially the ones with music!
My biggest issue with videos is actually when you can’t find a video that is just right. Some contain to much information, while other don’t include enough. At the rate of AI’s video generating skills, how far away are we from generating/making quality video which include accurate clips with human-like voice overs? Imagine uploading your notes and having a relevant and legitimate video, how would this affect the implementation of videos in education?
Hey team! I’m late to the party but I’ll weigh in;
I use video quite often, as a secondary science teacher. I find, like you mentioned on your sight, that animated videos can make the microscopic make a lot more sense in a student’s head, or show them some interesting things that are related to what we’re currently studying. Video already engages students quite well compared to some other media as students are more conditioned to be consumers of content like video from their online social lives.
The biggest challenges I face sometimes is finding videos that are short enough to not lose student’s attention, but long enough to get a good point across. There is a sweet-spot here; I’m looking for more than micro-learning but less than an hour-long lecture.
I also just find that consuming videos is usually more of a passive experience than an active one, but it doesn’t have to be this way. I have had students dissect videos, kinda like a scavenger hunt, for particular bits of information or references. The more active you can make the learning process that goes along with the video the better. Small, personal whiteboards that students can practice problems on while consuming a physics tutorial video, for example, works wonders.
Thank you for sharing some examples of how videos can be used in the real world. Another example I remember using was Google Cardboard (AR) videos, where students were able to put their mobile devices into the headset and have experiences (e.g., rollercoaster ride, field trips, etc). I think further development of this resource could be helpful when supporting students in applying their knowledge. For example, if they had to pretend to order something off a menu at a French restaurant in Paris through interactions with AR and videos.
One struggle that I have had using videos in the classroom is making sure they are grade-level appropriate. For instance, some of the videos are more advanced or elementary than what is needed for the course, so sometimes students use this opportunity to check out. What I want to try to use to mitigate this problem is the inclusion of something like Nearpod, where videos are interactive (i.e., students would be asked a question about the video that they need to answer to proceed). This might continue their engagement with the video and allow teachers more insight into whether they are actively learning. Unfortunately, licensing is a large barrier as it is not one of the approved applications/technologies from my school board, so I have not been able to integrate it into my class.
1. I find I use video when teaching both science and social studies. Concepts in these two subjects can be more abstract for students to grasp, and I find the multimodal presentation helps them gain understanding.
2. We live in a world where the short-form video reigns supreme in capturing the attention of youth. While there are problematic implications from this, I find that teachers also need to meet students at their current preferences to engage them.
3. A main challenge I notice is a significant amount of videos are focused on the United States rather than other parts of the world. Trying to find content that match the ideals of British Columbia’s curriculum can be challenging.
4. I feel that including an exit ticket or assignment directly connected to the video can help with accountability. I also tend to include discussions, activities or written reflections to go with the main idea of a video.
Hey team, some amazing applications you two have collected.
Video engagement is a fantastic tool to provide lecture-based content to students. Moreover, its accessibility and usability are as best as you can get. Although, despite new technology video’s are limit just as any lecture’s are. They primarily relies on the shallower cognitive-teaching mechanisms such as reading, writing, and listening. And although there is merit to the Mirror Neuron argument, videos may always need supplementation to encourage doing, teaching, and creating.
Hey Dave, (Instructor Dave?)
I agree with your critique on video primary – sometimes it can just feel more like lecture than anything else. I have found a few AI-assisted technologies that can take YouTube videos and turn them into interactives; Multiple-choice questions at certain points to ensure students are internalizing information, matching cards at certain sections, asking students to predict what will happen next in the video, etc etc. They can become more active than just old-school lectures.
Awesome site Mandy and Nik! I really liked how much video content you guys curated, it’s obvious there is a lot of love for using video in class.
Here are a couple thoughts I had while viewing.
In what ways does incorporating video promote engagement and critical thinking among students?
As I mentioned in an earlier Canvas post, I have found the emergence of DIY video incredibly important to my own learning journey. Not only for the documentaries that helped me learn the broad strokes of history, but more importantly I likely would have never learned to play guitar without YouTube. Before the internet third party media were usually books or DVDs/VHS. These were awful, no matter what famous guitar player was peddling this crap, the videos were always too slow and the lessons overly structured for me who just wanted to learn to play some songs (songs that I actually wanted to learn.) YouTube provided this, even by 2010 it was rare to not find a fully realized video guitar lesson for most songs you would hear on the radio or tv.
As far as video in the classroom – and please correct me if it’s in there – but one piece I found myself missing was the role that actually having students produce their own videos can play in this process. I’ve really enjoyed the few opportunities I’ve had to create videos during the MET program, and it made me wonder if you came across any research on students producing videos themselves?
Really great job!
That should say Megan and Nik 🙂
It seems there is no way to edit comments once posted.
I love your learning resources! I also like how you incorporated video through out the video.
1. Although I understand the benefits of using videos, I do not create them often in my work due to challenges with maintainability. For example, we used to produce video tutorials for our learning management system (LMS), but every time the interface was updated, we had to recreate the entire video. I was wondering, for subjects that require frequent updates (such as immigration law), what strategies can be used to ensure that the content remains current?
2. I believe that videos help to chunk the content, making it easier for students to digest the information compared to a wall of text. However, when it comes to critical thinking, I am not sure that video content alone promotes it unless the video includes question prompts or visual elements that encourage students to think critically. For example, a video might present a series of metaphorical images and prompt students to interpret their meaning.
3. Similar to what I mentioned in my first answer, one of the main challenges is the difficulty of maintaining video content. For subjects that require frequent updates, it becomes difficult to keep the videos current.
4. One approach teachers can take is to scaffold the video content with quizzes or supplementary materials. For example, they can add quizzes directly within the video using tools such as H5P’s Interactive Video activity. https://h5p.org/interactive-video