Student Engagement Through Video Instruction

We sure did not predict this to happen in the year 2020, regarding the pandemic and recent social issues that has been happening in our world. I feel our students are greatly impacted by the pandemic, since they cannot see their friends as often as they would like, or to take part in extra-curricular activities after school. I have found from an academic and social standpoint the flipped classroom has worked well with the transition and I find that my students are engaged. I caution anyone that uses the flipped classroom that they have a strong understanding of this teaching tool, because it is not a term to be used lightly. I have been implementing the flipped classroom/learning in my classrooms for the last seven years, and I recently completed a dissertation on flipped classrooms with regards to video instruction in the mathematics secondary classroom.

SInce I already had my lecture videos created, I found the transition to online learning proved beneficial to the students. I did not have to teach a lesson because my students did that in their individual space by watching my videos. Therefore, when we met in that group space I was looking to fill in the missing gaps of information. The screen time was then limited, and we had they chance to speak to one another to see how everyone was doing. Keep in mind with my research, students that are in the top of their class often do not like this method. The current situation we are in now, those students welcomed the flipped classroom through feedback that I received from them.

Currently I find that students are not as stressed having watched the videos at home they can come to class, ask questions and more importantly socialize with their friends.

I am curious to know if anyone else has implemented a flipped classroom approach and how has it been going through the pandemic and altered class schedules?

 

 

6 thoughts on “Student Engagement Through Video Instruction

  1. @dlumsden

    Looking forward to catching up on Saturday! If you have a few minutes from now until then we would love to know how things have been going in your classroom. See the above prompt for details. If you want to save time feel free to record a small 2 min screencast reflection. Just processing and sharing what school life has been like for you over the past few months is hugely helpful for everyone. As we reinvent education one day at a time sharing even the smallest successes and failures can be tremendously valuable. – Looking forward to catching up this weekend! – Justin

    @acampbellrogers @tfaucher @mmoore @hjepson @elee @jgravel

  2. Daniel, thank you for this post! I am eager to talk to you more about this approach to hyflex learning given your wealth of experience! I am new to this methodology, and having had no training in it, I have just jumped in! I am finding that the best way to be effective is to use the in-class time for making, assignments, work and research and the less instruction, the better. I try to download content instruction in a video lesson for homework. What I find challenging is that every lesson for a unit is not flipped (yet?) so I am a bit sporadic with it at the moment …
    I agree with you that this decreases the stress on students, since the instruction can be paused and re-viewed as many times as they need. It’s a wonderful strategy from this point and from the standpoint of opening class time to more socialization. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

  3. Daniel I would love to know any tips/tricks you have for successfully transitioning to a flipped classroom, I have tried with mixed results. I actually found the opposite that really strong students liked this approach because they can move through the material faster, whereas the students who typically struggle had more difficulty because they couldn’t ask questions in real time.

    Throughout these times of remote learning I have continued to do videos, but this time round in particular I have given the option for a mix. We have 3 hour blocks so usually the first block is spent reviewing and doing some critical thinking problems, and the second block is spent either doing the lesson live synchronously or via video asynchronously.

  4. Hi Daniel – I am hoping to get a chance to talk to you more about this on Saturday! I have experimented a bit with the flipped idea now and have a few questions for you – wondering what the ideal length of the videos is? I find I am tending to use this method when we seem to be getting behind in online synchronous classes and to compensate I’m assigning a ‘mini lesson’ to view for homework as a loom video. Not sure this is really the best use though! Curious about your thoughts.

    1. Hello Allison,

      I generally keep my videos between 6-8 minutes in length. From experience, any longer and students tend to start skipping pieces of the video. Overall students enjoy flipped learning, and the benefit is that you help fill in the missing gaps of knowledge, rather than teaching a whole lesson.

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