Using Video

Used judiciously, video can be a powerful tool to increase engagement, retention and learning outcomes. As Wen-Jung Hsin and John Cigas summarized it in their journal article "Short videos improve student learning in online education" Links to an external site.:

Prior to adding the mini-lectures, student withdrawal and failure rate was relatively high. Initial remediation by the instructor required time-intensive interactive chats and much written communication. After adding the videos, students were more satisfied with the course and were more likely to stay in the course with a passing score. Average grades in the course increased slightly, but with a significantly higher percentage of students and with much less instructor intervention.

Sounds good, right? And it is. But creating video comes at a cost of time, technology, and bandwidth, so deciding for yourself when and where to use video—and how to make that video most effective—is of critical importance.

Benefits of Creating Video

The advantages of using video include:

Creating an engaging learning experience that capitalizes on multiple modalities
Conveying complex information more readily
Facilitating higher-order thinking and problem solving
Providing students control over material in ways they can't with synchronous lectures: they can pause, rewind, and rewatch
Provides students with an opportunity to get to know you and your personality, decreasing feelings of disconnection and isolation

Drawbacks of Creating Video

Disadvantages of video include:

Challenging technology: learning to create engaging video requires learning potentially new technology
Time and effort: creating video requires not just the time of recording, but the time for planning/scripting and production time making it available to your students
Accessibility challenges: in order for video content to be fully accessible, scripts or transcripts must be created, captions provided, etc.
Bandwidth and time requirements: for videos to be useful, students must have access to adequate bandwidth and time to watch
Creating video that is adequately chunked and scaffolded means recording multiple short videos

External Video

You don't need to re-create the (video) wheel! Using video available from YouTube, Vimeo, Khan Academy and other external video providers can decrease your effort significantly, but along with sharing most of the advantages and disadvantages above, you must consider a few more aspects:

It can be challenging finding video that matches your content well enough
Too much reliance on external video can depersonalize your course, decreasing connection with you
External videos can suddenly disappear or otherwise become unavailable

Mayer’s Multimedia Principles

As you develop multimedia content for your course, you will want to follow best practices to promote student learning. Multimedia simply means using words and graphics to deliver information to learners. Richard Mayer, an educational psychologist, has researched cognitive theory and how to maximize learning. His work helps us understand that learners have a limited capacity for processing information. Through his research, Mayer has developed a series of multimedia principles. By following these principles, you will develop instructional materials that align with how students process information.

Multimedia Principle – When possible, add graphics to text or words to enhance student learning. Text or narrated trainings are more understandable when combined with meaningful graphics/images. Graphics should not be decorative which can serve as a distraction. Rather, graphics/images should allow students to connect or organize information.

Contiguity Principle – Words and graphics should be integrated to optimize learning. Physically separating information increases cognitive load as learners have to search for meaning. Place text-based information as close to the graphic as possible. Keys and legends require extra work and violate this principle. In addition, apply this principle when providing directions and feedback. These should be close in proximity to the student’s work.

Modality Principle – This principle encourages the use of narrated formats rather than heavy text-based modalities. This is especially helpful for lower-level learners. Information is easier to process when graphics and narrated formats are used in combination.

Redundancy Principle – Have you ever been to a training or conference where the presenter reads word for word from their PowerPoint presentation? In multimedia development, this should be avoided. As you create presentations, keep in mind that learners use dual channels to process information. This means that visual and verbal content are processed simultaneously. This is an effective method when graphics/images are combined with narration and minimal text. Adding excessive on-screen text, results in an additional visual input placing an excessive demand on the learner.

Coherence Principle – Keep essential information in each lesson and remove extraneous material that can distract from the main learning objectives. When using multimedia, it is best to keep it simple. Don’t add sounds and animations because you think it will make the material more interesting. Research indicates extraneous factors result in reduced learning.

Personalization Principle – Learners are more engaged with content when it appears to be presented in a less formal, conversational style. Consider using first and second person when narrating presentations. Students will be more engaged if the presentation feels more personal. In addition, consider the use of an avatar or virtual coach to help deliver the instruction.

Segmenting and Pretraining Principles – Previously in this training, you learned about chunking course material into manageable pieces. The same applies when creating multimedia presentations. Large or difficult concepts should be segmented into smaller pieces which allow students to slowly build their understanding. In addition, pretraining can be used to front-load students with key concepts necessary to understand your presentation.

Reference:
Clark, R., & Mayer, R. (2011). e-Learning and the Science of Instruction Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning (3rd ed.). Chichester: Wiley.

Additional Resources

For more information on these principles, watch this video lecture presented by Dr. Mayer.

Designing Multimedia Instruction to Maximize Learning Links to an external site..

What's Next?

Assuming you feel there is a place for video in your course, lets consider some characteristics of good videos for the online classroom and the tools available to you for creating it.