Work Smarter, Teach Better: Video Tools to Up the Engagement
As a pioneer and prominent scholar in online and blended learning, Contact North | Contact Nord Research Associate Dr. Tony Bates has worked with more than 40 organizations in 25 countries and is the author of 11 books. Specializing in consultancy and training in the planning and management of e-learning and distance education, he is the former Director of Distance Education and Technology at the University of British Columbia and Professor of Educational Media Research at the UK Open University. Dr. Bates’ five decades of work have captured the changing landscape of higher education, cementing his international reputation as a trusted voice in online learning.
50 years of lessons learned
I was asked some time ago: "What is the most important thing you have learned from your 50 years of research into learning technologies?"
I had to think carefully about this. Here are some of the many lessons I learned:
- The Gartner hype cycle is very accurate in predicting the path of a new technology for teaching
- The in-person formal lecture continues to dominate, despite all the research on its lack of efficiency in helping students learn compared to learning design incorporating technology (this can be put simply as instructors’ resistance to change)
- The potential and dangers of AI for teaching and learning
- The importance of an instructor’s deep subject knowledge combined with imagination for the successful use of technology in teaching
- That students need to learn how to use a technology effectively to learn (it doesn’t just happen)
- There is no one super-technology (not even, or especially, AI).
I think the most important lesson is that video is greatly underused in higher education teaching.
The greatest lesson: The importance of video
There are many excellent videos available for teaching in higher education, but these are hugely under-exploited. Video can do things that cannot be done in a classroom and it has unique teaching benefits.
It's why I joined my colleague Michael O’Donoghue, a senior lecturer in education at the University of Manchester in England, to make a set of seven videos that highlight the many ways video can support teaching and learning in higher education. These seven videos are now available as open educational resources.
Using video to teach more effectively
The seven videos in this series aim to encourage instructors to make better use of video in their teaching. To see each video, click on the illustrations or video titles below.
1. Making Effective Use of Video in Higher Education (12m09s)
- Describes general benefits of video for teaching
- Suggests why video is so underused in teaching
- Points out that there is a huge volume of video already available to use for free on almost any topic and level of learning
- Introduces the concept of educational affordances of video, and what it can do that can't easily be done in a classroom
Matt Yedlin Exponential Change
2. The Affordances of Video (24m00s)
Features specific educational affordances of video in:
- The humanities
- Chemistry
- Anatomy
- Mathematics
- Environmental sciences
- Biology
- Nursing
This video also introduces the faculty who created some of these examples and who are interviewed later in this series.
UN Climate Change video 2022
Videos 3-6 are interviews with faculty who made some of the videos included in Video 2 in this series. In each interview, the interviewee is asked why and how they made their videos, how students responded to the video, and their general views on using video for teaching.
3. Animation: Video in the Life Sciences (17m03s)
This interview with Professor Rosalind Redfield, Professor of Zoology at the University of British Columbia, who covers the use of stop animation with candy to explain a biological process that students rarely understand fully.
Interview with Professor Rosie Redwood
4. Interactive Games: Video in Health Assessment (12m35s)
This interview with Margaret Verkyl and Paula Mastrilli, at Centennial College and George Brown College, Toronto, explores the development of an interactive video game for nursing students on how to manage a difficult home visit.
Margaret Verkyl and Paula Mastrilli: Interactive video game: Home visit for mental health assessment
5. Video in Medical Education (10m49s)
Professor Claudia Krebs, Professor of Anatomy at the University of British Columbia, describes making a video on the anatomy of the brain, using an actual human brain.
Claudia Krebs Anatomy of the Brain
6. Video in Mathematics Education (20m28s)
Professor John Mason of the UK Open University, a pioneer in the use of video for teaching, explains (a+b)3 using a studio model of a cube.
John Mason (a+b)3
7. Innovative and Accessible Video Production Services
This short video from UBC Media Services demonstrates various studio arrangements available for faculty at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Lightboard in use at UBC Media Services
General benefits of video
- Video can help learning in ways that are difficult to do in person (see Video 1 generally, and all other videos in the series for specific examples)
- There's already a wide range of free material online (see Video 1)
- Thinking through the use of video can help instructor and student gain a deeper understanding of core concepts or processes (see Video 3)
- Video can help even the most able students improve learning outcomes (see Video 4)
- Learning is a dynamic process and video can help students develop a personal narrative about what they're learning that leads to deeper comprehension (see Video 6)
There are barriers, however.
Video 1 shows that many instructors:
- Think incorporating video into their teaching is extra work
- Don't feel qualified to make or use video
- Are unsure what to use video for
There are many different ways to use video to provide distinct learning advantages over in-person classroom activities. Here are 15 examples showing how videos can:
1. Demonstrate dynamic change (see Videos 1, 2 and 3).
2. Provide concrete examples of abstract principles through the use of graphics and animation (Videos 1, 2 and 6)
3. Help interpret or analyze performance (see Video 2)
4. Demonstrate activities and analysis by specialists in their field that may otherwise be difficult or impossible to do because of location, timing or danger to students (see Video 2)
5. Provide access to scarce resources (see Video 2)
6. Show the synthesis of a wide range of variables to suggest how real-world problems can be resolved, and to motivate students to action (see Video 2)
7. Offer concrete images to support analysis or abstractions (see Video 2)
8. Carry a strong emotional impact for learners (see Video 2)
9. Take a complex argument and compress it into a short time (this allows or often requires follow-up discussion with the class - see Video 2)
10. Demonstrate change over time through the use of animation, slow motion or speeded-up video (see Video 2)
11. Demonstrate decision-making through stage simulations, dramatization or role-playing (see Videos 2 and 4)
12. Provide opportunities for student decision-making and feedback on their decisions (see Video 2)
13. Explain complex processes that are difficult or impossible to observe with the human eye (see Video 3)
14. Use games to elicit a strong emotional response from students, increasing their motivation and engagement (Video 4)
15. Be used where resources are unsuitable for student experimentation such as live animals and human body parts (see Video 5)
There are many more educational affordances being identified all the time across all subject disciplines.
Requirements for learning effectiveness
Just asking students to watch a video is usually not enough to ensure learning will take place. Videos need to be embedded into a specific learning environment, which means providing guidance before viewing (why they need to see it and how they will benefit) and follow-up such as questions about the video or other learning activities related to the video.
Other guidelines for success include:
- Video 3: It’s important to identify key concepts or processes that students struggle with and think of ways in which video could help.
- Video 3: Have a second set of eyes during the design and production of the video, whether it’s from a media producer or another educator, or even selected students.
- Video 4: It is important to ask students to engage with the video in preparation or in follow-up.
- Video 5: Find ways in which video:
- Can explain concepts
- Demonstrate processes
- Provide student activities that are difficult or not possible in a classroom
- Video 4: Making a viable video requires many iterations of a script and testing to ensure students will understand and engage it.
- Video 4: In many instances there are opportunities for fund some of the costs of developing videos, either through internal or external funding.
- Video 5: It is really important to have a script that is both clear and succinct. This requires working in conjunction with students to ensure they will fully understand what the video is showing.
- Video 5: Although it's often possible to make excellent videos using very simple technology such as mobile phones, some circumstances will require high quality production facilities.
- Video 6: Professional production facilities can enable high-level representation or presentation of concepts that would be difficult or impossible to do in other ways.
A final world about using video for teaching in a digital age
The seven videos outlined above focus mainly on using professional or semi-professional production facilities. Today of course, many people make videos for social media using just a smartphone, and there is no reason why these should not be used for making and distributing educational videos. Indeed, we used a smartphone as a second camera for some of the interviews in this series.
However, to produce quality video this way can be quite demanding on the instructor unless you can get additional help from your students. If your university or college has a media services unit, we would strongly advise that you seek their help, even if you wish to use just a smartphone.
Also these videos touch just the tip of the iceberg. More can be found in Chapter 8.4 of Teaching in a Digital Age.
