Effective Educational Videos

 Tips for Maximizing Student Learning From Video

I am so impressed by the number of teachers who have begun incorporating educational videos in their instruction as part of our professional development on Multiple Means of Representation. 

Some of you have expressed frustration that students are not engaging with the videos as you would like. Some students are ignoring parts of the video and as a result, missing the educational content. For these reasons, I am sharing tips that will increase student learning from videos. 

To start, I need to go back to my post on cognitive load, particularly extraneous load. If you recall, extraneous load is determined by how content is presented. The goal is to reduce extraneous load so that students' working memories are focused only on the content to be learned. This applies to educational videos. To reduce extraneous load and increase attention, consider the following recommendations:

Signaling:

Signaling, or cueing, directs students' attention to a specific aspect of the video, which signals (pun intended) the working memory to process that information. Teachers can use text, symbols, or even prompts as cues.

Segmenting:

Chunking information, or segmenting, allows students to engage with small pieces of information, making the information easier to attend to and comprehend. Teachers may segment a video by annotating the video, providing pauses and "click forward" options, and posing interactive questions. Looking for a video annotation tool? Start here.

Weeding:

Eliminating information that does not relate to the content is a great way to increase attention and reduce the cognitive load on students' working memories. Consider removing music, complex backgrounds, and animation that does not contribute to the learning.

Matching Modalities:

From previous professional development, you know that the brain is a dual processor. We learn through two channels in the brain: audio/verbal and visual/pictorial (icons). If teachers convey complementary information using both channels then students will retain the content. How might this look? Think of the videos in Khan Academy. They illustrate and explain a concept simultaneously. 

Besides being aware of cognitive load, teachers can employ the following guidelines when creating or showing videos:

  • Keep them short. "The maximum median engagement time for a video is 6 minutes" (Brame, 4).
  • Select a video in which the speaker is using a conversational style and speaking quickly.
  • Contextualize the video. Explain the purpose of the video to students' learning. Remember to activate prior knowledge in this discussion. 

  • Promote cognitive activity, or active learning, by inserting questions into the video or assigning guided questions for students to consider while viewing and answer when finished. 

The big takeaway for teachers is to anticipate that students' shortened attention spans and limited working memories will impact their ability to focus on an educational video unless they manage cognitive load and active engagement.  


Resource:
Brame, C.J. (2016). Effective Educational Videos: Principles and Guidelines for Maximizing Student Learning From Video Content. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-03-0125


 





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