Increase Student Engagement Using Video

Full transcript below video.

Video Transcript

Hey guys, it’s Tiffany and I’m here to talk to you about how you can increase student engagement with video.

So we’re at this really interesting moment in history where the world of technology and the world of education are colliding in some really wonderful and exciting ways. One of those ways is through video. Now it used to be that videos in the classroom were pretty much an old VHS tape of Bill Nye The Science Guy, which is great, love Bill Nye, or you know, some recorded documentary, but video in the classroom can be really really transformative, and so I’m going to talk to you guys about five different ways that you can increase student engagement in your classroom.

Number one, you can increase student engagement with video by changing the way you deliver content. Students are consumers of digital content now, they love videos that’s why YouTube is such a big deal right now and they like learning from videos, in fact as adults what do you do when your car is broken or your washing machine is broken?

A lot of times you go, “Hey YouTube, how do I fix my washing machine?” Right, so we learn from video, students can too, and there are tons of tech tools that you can use to make learning through video really easy and really engaging. So you’ve got EdPuzzle where you can insert questions into video, you’ve got Khan Academy with a whole slew of math video resources, you can just go to YouTube and find a video on pretty much everything assign it to your student.

So all of these different ways of video delivering the content means that you as the teacher can spend your time working with students, formatively assessing, having those important conversations, rather than just standing in front of the room talking. So using video to deliver content is a great strategy for increasing engagement.

Second way that you can use video in your classroom to increase student engagement is to really put the power in their hands, this is so neat that we can do this now. We can have students creating videos, they could create a video blog in response to something they read. They can use Flipgrid to create videos that explain a concept, they can use Screencastify to show you the learning that they’re doing and actually explain ideas. So actually putting that content creation in the student’s hand can be a really interesting way to use video in the classroom, and they’re are so many awesome tools that let you do this with your students.

Third way to use video to increase engagement for your students. So you know when you’re grading an essay, like let’s say it’s an opinion essay, and there’s all sorts of thoughts that you want to give the student and you’re typing, typing, typing, and you’re trying to give them feedback. Well we all know that some of the best feedback in writing comes where were actually having a conversation with a student, or talking to the student. So why not use a video recording tool to like Screencastify, or like the webcam on your computer, and record a quick video telling your thoughts to the student.

So sharing your ideas about their writing, the goods, the needs for improvement, all that kind of stuff you can put into a video, and I’m going to tell you that your students are going to be much more likely to consume that feedback if it’s offered in a video format. So you could write a paragraph giving feedback to the students, or you could create a 60 second video. Which one are they more likely to look at carefully? Probably the video. They interact so well with videos, so giving feedback through video is a really great idea for increasing that engagement.

A fourth great way that you can use video in your classroom to increase engagement is to use it as a tool for communication. So you can have your students record a video of what they’re learning in class that day, send it off to your parents, and your parents will be able to ask your students all sorts of questions about what they learned in class. So we can make that home-school connection really strong, and the students are going to go home and say, “Hey did you see the video that we made today?” They’re going to be much more bought in and engaged with that learning process because they helped to create the way that you’re communicating it to families.

The fifth and final way that I’m going to tell you how you increase student engagement with your students with video is by connecting. Connecting to other classrooms. There are so many ways you can do that. You can essentially have a classroom penpal, where your class records videos, sends it off, then another class somewhere around the world, can record a video and share it with you.

You could connect with other classrooms through Skype and have like a sister classroom set up where you guys have conversations. There is a Spanish teacher at my school that does this with a school in the Canary Islands, and they have conversations and the students speak Spanish to each other. It’s so neat! There are so many opportunities to globally connect your classroom to other classrooms around the world, and when you do that your students are going to be so stoked. They’re going to be super excited.

So these are just some ideas for how you can use video in your classroom and how you can really increase that engagement for your students. I hope your try some of them out. Make sure that you like the video and click subscribe, leave comments if you have any questions, and thank you so much for watching today.