Evaluating Instructional Videos

Create Opportunities for active learning.

  1. Active learning enhances student learning (Freeman et al., 2014).
  1. Videos need not be passive learning experiences
    1. They can integrate conceptual checkpoints to engage students
  1. Interspersed active learning can significantly enhance learning from instructional videos (Szpunar et al., 2013)

Make expertise visible to direct students' practice

  1. Directed, goals-driven practice leads to greater student learning (reviewed in Ambrose et al., 2010).
  1. Students need to practice component skills, integrating those skills, and recognizing when to apply them.
  1. Videos can guide students' practice by modeling the disciplinary habits.

Supplemental instruction

  1. Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT) are brief, anonymous, ungraded assessment of students learning.
  1. The Muddiest Point: a CAT in which students briefly write about what concepts remain unclear after a lesson.
  1. Short videos can be used as a targeted, supplemental instruction.

Providing feedback on student work

  1. Frequent, timely, targeted feedback leads to greater learning gains (Ambrose et al. 2010).
  1. Instructors can use video to provide students with feedback with more efficiency, timeliness, and efficacy.
  1. Video and audio feedback can feel more personal and engaging to students (Mathieson, 2012).
  1. By highlighting and annotating specific strengths and areas for improvement on the screen, instructors can also model their thought processes and expectations for student performance.

References

Ambrose et al., (2010). How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Freeman, S. Eddy, S.L., Smith, M.K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., Wenderoth, M.P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, United States of America, 111(23)8410–8415.

Froyd, J., Borrego, M., Henderson, C., & Prince, M.J. (2013). Estimates of use of research-based instructional strategies in core electrical or computer engineering courses. IEEE Transactions on Education, 56(4), 393-399.

Green, K.R., Mirecki Millunchick, J., and Pinder-Grover, T. (2012) Impact of Screencast Technology: Connecting the Perception of Usefulness and the Reality of Performance. Journal of Engineering Education, 101(4), 717–737.

Mathieson, K. (2012). Exploring student perceptions of audiovisual feedback via screencasting in online courses. American Journal of Distance Education, 26:143–156.

Pinder-Grover, T., Green, K., & Millunchick, J.M. (2011). The efficacy of screencasts to address the diverse academic needs of students in a large lecture course. Advances in Engineering Education, 2(3). Retrieved from http://advances.asee.org/vol02/issue03/09.cfm

Szpunar, K.K., Khan, N.Y., & Schacter, D.L. (2013). Interpolated memory tests reduce mind wandering and improve learning of online lectures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(16), 6313-6317.