Engaging Video Lessons: The New-Normal Teaching & Learning Need

To engage your learners with your video lessons, don’t begin with a drawn-out introduction to the topic. Begin with a suspenseful drama then proceed to unfold the learning content audio-visually, pictorially and textually while being the orator of the content.

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Summary

With the advent to the Education 4.0, there is no alternative to developing video contents conducive to the learners’ personal choice, taste and needs while prioritizing sustained attention, retention and engagement. According to the researchers, video contents only have a span of 8 seconds to hook the viewers’ attention and grab it. The impression made in the 8 seconds tend to captivate the viewers to watch to the end of the video. Similarly, learners’ attention need to be sustained through the video lessons. Creating one such lesson isn’t a matter of just picking-up a sophisticated camera, and capturing a lecture on the onset of a classroom. It is a science that depends on the understanding of how learners’ attention and engagement are instigated and sustained. This short article will explore the ways of creating such a video lesson that guarantees engagement and sustenance of attention besides discussing the pros and cons of it.

Background

There is a saying that a “picture is worth a thousand words” the same can be true of videos, perhaps, slightly more can be said about it. Kallas (2018) contends that videos are 74% more persuasive than any other medium of advertisement, which in our case can be the images, texts, or slides as teaching and learning content deliverers. Videos have come a long way since the time when video cassette recorders (VCR) or video cassette players (VCPs) were around in almost all the houses for watching films. Today, videos are one of the most engaging mediums you can use to put across your ideas, beliefs and views. They strike a deep connection and elicit strong emotional responses that make the viewers want to watch, question, comment, share and like. Videos get 1,200% more shares than texts and images combined (Ritchie, 2019).

In this light, transforming teaching and learning from typical whiteboard-based interactive delivery to video-based interactive delivery has become more essential a move for teachers to make than ever before Covid-19. Schools, colleges, and universities along with all the other privately run educational institutions, all have cringed their reach in terms of physical interactions and have resorted to or rather metamorphosed into a cloud-based premise for continuing their educational endeavors for business. Much the same way, students too have limited their errands within the bounds of their residences. But, teaching and learning is eventuated either via LIVE streams, LIVE meetings, or self-paced contents over the internet. In any case, learner engagement has become a buzzword going around the educational industry seeking a plausible solution for effective sustenance.

Introduction

There are numerous ways of engaging the learners in a lesson but videos are indispensable. To attract the attention of the learners at the very early minutes of the video lessons, the most commonly used technique is to select the most interesting bits of the video lessons and synthesize them at the beginning. This creates a sense of gap in the knowledge of the viewers or challenges their already acquired knowledge. Moreover, the key is to prepare video lessons that quench one’s curiosity which is the driving-force of human development, progress, and ingenuity (Saif, 2020). Curiosity is like a gap in one’s knowledge which he or she wants to fill with appropriate new knowledge that compliments both the learner and the learning; hence, while creating video lessons one needs to meticulously point to the gap in the knowledge of their learners (Saif, 2020).

How to create an engaging video lesson?

Unlike Facebook’s or YouTube’s videos, learners have no alternative to watching a video lesson that covers a part of the syllabi or curricula, but they do have the choice to skip what disinterests them. Including real-time visual previews that allow learners to apprehend the progress of the lesson is the best bet a teacher should take in order to heighten the engagement.

To increase the video lesson’s engagement, a teacher must create a video lesson with special attention to the key aspects like:

• content
• emotion
• filming and editing

followed by analyzing the following:

• views
• comments
• likes
• learner retention rate
• number of subscriptions

In addition, a teacher can as well carefully place questions that pop-up during the video lesson and require the learners to reply in order to progress through the video lesson. Being able to respond will give the students a sense of control which motivates them to engage more. Saif (2020) asserts “video has become the most popular source of information and entertainment for people today. YouTube’s popularity is a testament to this fact.” Accordingly to Statista (2019) 85% of the internet users in the United States watch videos. Therefore, this era can be best characterized as the time for fast-reciprocation, quick responses, and short attention spans. So, video lessons that appeal to bridge the knowledge gap through aesthetics, fun and relevant content have no alternative.

The solution to creating a video lesson that grabs the attention of the learners, sustains it and engages to elicit their responses are as follows:

• lessons explained videos
• tutorials demonstrating processes
• testimonials to authenticate learning contents
• interviews of colleagues for voicing the same
• LIVE streams

A teacher can also use visual storytelling technique to get learners’ attention in a short amount of time. Storytelling, Saif (2020) said, “is the key when it comes to creating engaging video content.” But it the student should unfold in medias res i.e. in the middle of things (Hooks, 2019). Without doubt, Saif (2020) further asserted, “it allows you to move away from the in-your-face, product-led (i.e. lesson) method of advertising to something that is more nuanced.” Along with the explanation, narration or tutorial, the teacher can incorporate text, animation, images, and interactive contents for strategically initiating some degree of engagement without being a direct prompter, guide or facilitator. One great example of storytelling is the Sainsbury’s commercial for 2014 “Christmas is for sharing“. To create a storytelling video lesson, teachers should not just rely on one or singular plot lines, they should rather plan for multiple plot lines that create a scope for a wide variety of story styles to deliver the lesson. However, to achieve this in reality depends not on the number, but on the types of stories a teacher wants to tell for his or her lesson. Authors have identified that there are essentially 7 types of plots for stories (Saif, 2020).

One of the most effective ways of creating a video lesson that engages learners is to incorporate orating technique for which writing a script is a key (Hooks, 2019). However, integrating ethos, pathos, and logos for persuasively delivering the learning content is perceived to be equally effective. Borrowed from the Aristotle’s famous rhetorical appeals that is also commonly known as “modes of persuasion”, ethos pathos and logos are used in speech writing and advertising to get the audience to empathize with a point of view (Saif, 2020). They can be briefly characterized as the following:

• Ethos : appeal by ethics
• Pathos: appeal by emotion
• Logos: appeal by logic

The purpose of learning is to grasp the content’s main idea. This is best done by including facts to establish a degree of personal rapport with the learners through incorporating Ethos. The more credible a teacher sounds in his delivery of the content, the more his/her learners increase their engagement. However, engagement can be sustained, retained and multiplied if Logos is aptly applied by backing up the lessons’ claims. A teacher should cross check the references, and credit the source of their facts and figures.

Conclusion

All in all, the video lessons should stand out from the rest of the thousands of videos that are viral all over the internet. To do that a teacher should present his/her own brand which can be the workplace he or she is associated with or affiliated to. The content must be presented in a manner that identifies the unique relevance by bridging the knowledge gap in the learner’s mind while maintaining the set or perceived standards and quality of delivery. In all this being done, priority should be given to the readability of the learners’ responses in order to elevate engagements to the highest level possible.

Work Cited

Clement, J. (2019, March 22). Online video penetration in selected countries 2018. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/272835/share-of-internet-users-who-watch-online-videos/

Hooks, R. (2019, December 09). Top techniques for creating engaging videos. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://99designs.com/blog/video-animation/creating-engaging-videos/

Kallas, P. (2018, July 10). 8 Powerful Reasons You Need to Use Video Marketing [TRENDS]. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://www.dreamgrow.com/8-reasons-why-your-business-should-use-video-marketing/

Mohsin, M. (2020, July 14). 10 Video Marketing Statistics for 2020 [May 2020]. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://www.oberlo.com/blog/video-marketing-statistics

Ritchie, J. (2019, November 18). 5 Reasons Why Video Is More Effective than Text. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://idearocketanimation.com/17385-reasons-video-effective-text/

Saif, M. (2020, August 08). Top 5 Tips on How to Create Engaging Video Content. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://motioncue.com/top-5-tips-on-how-to-create-engaging-video-content/