Stop Talking: Video in the Classroom
We are a media-driven culture. I know this because I never watch TV yet can still name all the Kardashians somehow. More specifically though, we in the age of fast media. News is absorbed from 140 character Tweets, and most people's opinions are formed from short videos in their Facebook feeds. We'll leave the discussion about whether this is good or bad for another time, though.
As educators, what should we do about this? Like everything else, we can be that stubborn mule that's going nowhere no matter what, or we can accept the reality and focus on best practices with it.
Before everyone grabs their torches and pitchforks, I am not downplaying the importance of stamina when it comes to reading and processing longer, more dense texts, be they video or written. I just think that our curriculum sometimes asks students to start with a marathon, and when they can't do it, we pull our hair out (or attempt to, as is the case with my bald reality) and get frustrated about the lack of stamina. If a student doesn't know our content, we teach it. Stamina is no different.
If the average shot in a movie today is 2.5 seconds, and we know that our students' (and our own) brains are physiologically adapting to move away from longer spans of concentration and towards the ability to intake information faster, how do we adapt our classrooms to reflect this change?
The answer is not a 45-minute lecture. One possible answer is through the thoughtful use of video in our classrooms. I want to emphasize one of the words there: thoughtful.
Video still has a bad stigma associated with it thanks to the giant TV cart that used to be rolled out every time the teacher just wasn't up to teaching that day.
Videos are still often associated with laziness, and if they aren't used thoughtfully, that's a fair association. If watching a video is a passive activity, we are encouraging students to be lazy. In general, if we ask students to be passive in any activity, we encourage them to be lazy.
To avoid this dilemma, here are a few things to think about when planning how to use video in your classroom.
As educators, what should we do about this? Like everything else, we can be that stubborn mule that's going nowhere no matter what, or we can accept the reality and focus on best practices with it.
Before everyone grabs their torches and pitchforks, I am not downplaying the importance of stamina when it comes to reading and processing longer, more dense texts, be they video or written. I just think that our curriculum sometimes asks students to start with a marathon, and when they can't do it, we pull our hair out (or attempt to, as is the case with my bald reality) and get frustrated about the lack of stamina. If a student doesn't know our content, we teach it. Stamina is no different.
If the average shot in a movie today is 2.5 seconds, and we know that our students' (and our own) brains are physiologically adapting to move away from longer spans of concentration and towards the ability to intake information faster, how do we adapt our classrooms to reflect this change?
The answer is not a 45-minute lecture. One possible answer is through the thoughtful use of video in our classrooms. I want to emphasize one of the words there: thoughtful.
Video still has a bad stigma associated with it thanks to the giant TV cart that used to be rolled out every time the teacher just wasn't up to teaching that day.
To avoid this dilemma, here are a few things to think about when planning how to use video in your classroom.
1. What is the learning objective?
If your answer is, "So that they shut up." Eh, maybe rethink that. The video should be as targeted as possible. If you need to teach a skill, find a video that focuses exclusively on that skill. If you are teaching content, what's the most important content? A whole documentary is nice (because you could kick your feet up and pretend like kids are learning the whole time), but if there is a lot of information in there, students are going to be overwhelmed. Focus is key when it comes to using video.
2. How short can you make it?
If there is a seven-minute video and a three-minute video, I often opt for the shorter one even if it's not as comprehensive of a video. The purpose of video should be to introduce the topics. Give students the basics, not the whole theoretical understanding of the concept. The majority of the learning process should happen after the video, not during it.
3. How are students engaging with the video?
I'm not talking about a quiz after the video. How are students engaging with the video during the video? Notes are fine, but can we do better? I'll go into this in much more depth in an upcoming post about how to get started with flipped or blended lessons, but for now, ask yourself, "How are we asking students to use the video during the video?"
4. How are students held accountable for the information in the video?
If the norm in the class is that students are simply going to watch a video and move on, prepare yourself for a classroom management nightmare. Kids will definitely be looking at screens, but not the ones you want them to be looking at. The accountability aspect works two ways: (1) It helps with classroom management, but most importantly (2) it allows you to adjust and reteach effectively. The worst thing we can do is assume that because the video taught it, the students learned it.
5. How are students using the information in the video?
I know this sounds exactly like section four, but I separated it intentionally. Having a quick check for the basic concepts can catch some of the misunderstandings, but the way students apply the information from the video will determine the depth of understanding that results from the lesson.
Is every video lesson perfect? Nope. Is it okay to do a video lesson that doesn't meet all the requirement? Sure. Is it even okay to maybe watch a long video that doesn't have a ton of academic value? The day after a long night of parent-teacher conferences and you just need to try to be a human, sure.
To help, I've made a simple template for myself that I try to use whenever I am going to show a video. I'll share it here. Feel free to make a copy of it and alter it to whatever suits you best.
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| (Click here to go to the Google Doc version.) |
Comments? Please leave them below.
