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Use video in teaching

Using videos can enhance your teaching, improve student engagement and offer an alternative mode to communicate with your students. Using video to connect with students, teach, give feedback, and to assess learning through assignments have all been shown by research to be effective. Videos offer a different type of media compared to text, that can work very effectively for students to retain and use knowledge. Video teaching can provide some of the same experience as the blended or active learning approach that you may be familiar with.

Example of videos in teaching

There are several types of video commonly used in teaching:

Videos can foster a sense of closeness and social presence for both students and teachers in an online environment. Research has indicated that this type of engagement is crucial for effective virtual spaces. In your face-to-face teaching you may be familiar with the importance of this kind of connection. You can use video to introduce yourself, give an overview for the class content and methodology.
You can use video to summarise the main learning that will be done during the week and highlight the expectations of student work that you might have. The visual stimulation encourages student engagement with the content or concept, helping them retain and connect information. Students can also pause, rewind, reflect, and re-watch content being shown on a video, granting a locus of control of the content timing. This control means that there is a lower cognitive load for students to understand and internally integrate the new knowledge into their existing understandings.
Videos can be used to provide step-by-step instructions for tasks, virtual access to environments, illustrate technical information or complex procedures and concepts. Research has shown that videos with integrated learning activities, for example a simple quiz, can increase student engagement. Instead of a passive information reception, students are required to think critically, problem solve, and participate in the activity which can lead to better learning.
You can use videos to provide feedback in a natural way that gives context, tone, and presence that helps the student to understand the key feedback points. This can potentially take more time than text feedback, but can often be significantly more effective in guiding student behaviour, understanding, and learning. An alternative to individual feedback is to provide a video explaining the strengths of an exemplar assignment, similar to a class-oriented exemplar feedback that you might do in a physical lecture space.
Interviewing experts and using the video clips as the basis of discussion, exploration of key concepts and links to professional contexts. Student-created interviews that require students to plan, script and conduct interviews with experts or as part of role plays.

Video production

Creating videos is also not as daunting as you might think. You can create videos yourself with many modern devices, such as your laptop’s built-in webcam or your smartphone, and a video recording program to create good quality videos for teaching. If you wish to create high production videos, you can book into one of the recording facilities at Monash. For more information, see the Microstudio or the Lightboard Studio.

Examples of video recording devices

Built-in Laptop webcam.
External USB webcam.
A smartphone camera. Set your phone to the highest resolution, up to full HD (1920 x 1080) and always shoot in landscape mode.
A camera on a tripod.

Video recording software programs

There are a range of Monash-supported programs that will help you record, edit and upload videos to Moodle. You can record yourself and your screen to present any slides or learning material you would like to share.

Panopto: Recording, Inserting & Uploading video content to Moodle with Panopto
Zoom: Recording video with Zoom guide
PowerPoint: PowerPoint recording guide

Video best practice

Following a few general principles will help you to create videos that are effective and also improve your workflow. For technical tips about recording good quality video and sound, see the Tips for filming video and audio guide.

Short: It is important that videos are appropriate, efficient, to-the-point, and effective. Keep videos as short as possible while still addressing the main concept or content. The recommended length of a video should be no longer than six or seven minutes. If you have longer videos containing several learning objectives, consider chunking the information by topic or theme into a series of shorter videos.
Sound: Good clear audio is essential. Nothing is more frustrating and disengaging for students if they can't hear clearly what is being said.
Script: Having a script or a list of prompt points will help improve the meaning and flow of your video and ensure you cover all the relevant information.

Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ