In today’s diverse classrooms, video has emerged as a powerful tool to enhance learning experiences for all students. By incorporating video into your teaching strategies, you can create more engaging, inclusive, and effective lessons. Let’s explore how video can revolutionise your classroom.
Video in classrooms has been a game changer for education. Since the inclusion of smart boards and interactive whiteboards, video has allowed teachers to engage and inspire their learners.
Video is also a great strategy for supporting the implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in your lessons. There are many guidelines supporting video. These include Design Options for Welcoming Interests and Identities, Design Options for Perception, and Design Options for Language and Symbols. As we have all experienced though, not all videos and education clips are equal and, in fact, quality.
Whether you are searching for a video to use or you are thinking about creating your own videos for lessons, some elements in videos improve their quality. These elements also make videos more inclusive. Let’s dive in to find out why we should use video as an inclusive teaching strategy. We will also consider what to look out for when using or creating videos.
This post will unpack:
- Why we should be using video as an inclusive teaching strategy
- What elements are needed in our videos to ensure they are inclusive and universally designed
- How to create your own
- How to integrate video into lessons
Why Should We Use Video in Our Lessons?
Engagement
Video is an alternative to hearing the teacher speak. With visuals, audio, and music used to engage the audience to keep watching, video is a surefire way to engage your learners in the content you are teaching. Engagement can also be promoted through the real-life scenarios that video can bring into the classroom that teaching alone just cannot do.
Video Supports the UDL Principle of Engagement
Relevant video content that relates to students’ own lives can have a big impact on motivation and engagement. The UDL Guideline of Welcoming Interests and Identities can be supported through the use of video in your classroom. The flexible nature of video can also provide choice and autonomy to learners for when and how they want to engage in the learning.
Supports Cognitive Load
The use of video can maximize the working memory’s capacity through the use of visual/pictorial channels and auditory/verbal-processing channels (Brame, 2016). This means that students can focus on the important content they need to learn. When videos are well-designed with cognitive load elements considered, they can be a high-impact inclusive teaching strategy for students.
When videos consider elements such as highlighting information, chunking information, linking auditory and visual information together, and eliminating irrelevant information, they can become very powerful learning tools.
Video Supports the UDL Principle of Representation
Video helps represent concepts and skills in multiple ways to enable the learner to build a deeper understanding of the content being taught. The use of visuals, worked examples and auditory information that a video can provide makes them an inclusive and universally designed strategy that supports your UDL implementation.
Increase Comprehension
As well as being a powerful tool to support engagement and working memory, video can help increase the comprehension of the content being taught (Unayam, 2018). Just like when using cognitive load elements and theory, the use of visuals and audio together while highlighting and modeling examples of the concept or skill ensures learners have an increased understanding of what is being taught.
Video Supports the UDL Guideline of Language and Symbols
A quality video can help clarify or demonstrate vocabulary or symbols that are new to the learner. They can bring cultural perspectives and understandings into the classroom that teacher talk alone can’t do. A concept can be represented in multiple ways to help develop understanding through video.
Supports Self-Paced Learning
Video is a handy tool to have when it comes to self-paced learning. A video can be used multiple times and students can pause, rewind, and fast-forward videos to support them in understanding the content they are required to learn. Videos can be pulled up at any time and any place. A teacher could be working with a group of students while others are using video to learn about a concept or skill that is important for their learning journey.
Preferred Way to Consume
Let’s face it, our learners are on YouTube and TickTock. They are consuming videos all the time. Why not leverage that in the classroom?
What Elements are Needed in our Videos to Ensure They are Inclusive and Universally Designed?
As you are probably aware, with the endless scrolling on YouTube to find the perfect video for a concept you are teaching, not all videos are the same. Some videos are nowhere near inclusive for all learners. So let’s have a look at some elements you might like to consider when you are creating or finding videos to use for an inclusive teaching strategy or the implementation of UDL.
This list is not extensive but a good place to start.
High Level of Visual Support with Audio
The videos we use need to have a high degree of visual elements with audio. So videos that demonstrate, give examples, or show worked examples will have a higher impact on learning and comprehension (Donaghy, 2019). This also supports cognitive load theory.
No More Than 6 Minutes Long
Learners will start to lose interest after 6 minutes long and in my experience, younger students will be able to retain attention for even less than that. If you think a concept requires more time, try breaking it up with something interactive between sections of the video.
Use Chapters
If you are making a video, break it up into chapters or clear breaks so students can pause and take a break or practise themselves before moving on. This also helps learners who might be working independently to find the places they need to rewatch to improve their understanding. A lot of videos on YouTube now use chapters to support their audience’s understanding.
Highlight Keywords and Important Information
Highlighting or emphasising the important information of keywords can be a great strategy to focus students on the really important stuff they need to know. This can be done by highlighting, underlining, or using animation to emphasise it. Just be aware though of not having too much animation. It can turn into a distraction if not used sparingly.
Eliminate Unnecessary Music
Watch for videos that have unhelpful, flashy music. It can become a distraction for some learners when they are focused on the tune of the music and not the content being taught. Music can be a great way to get learners to tune in but should not be throughout the video.
Make it Interactive
Just like teacher talk with no interaction or participation from students, videos that have students sitting and listening for some time without their active participation can be detrimental to engagement. No one likes to be talked at, even if it is through video.
Try using questions or guided practice to keep students engaged and focused on the learning. You can also have a worksheet they need to fill in throughout the video while they watch.
Make it Easy to Read – high contrast and easy-to-read font
If students can’t read it, they can not receive it. Make the colours contrast and the font easy to read. Consider students who have low vision or even students who are sitting at the back of the room. You might even consider using a font that is dyslexic-friendly. Check out some suggestions here.
Use Captions and Audio Descriptions
Some students will also benefit from the use of closed captions to increase their understanding. It is an example of a universally designed support that will support more than your students who are deaf or hard of hearing but some students do like to see the words while the person is presenting.
Audio Description is essential for learners who require a screen reader but can also be a great note-taking support for others.
How to Create Your Own
Look I’ll admit that I am no pro at creating videos for my class but I am slowly getting better. There are people out there who know a lot more than me in this space so I thought I would share the support that I have found when creating videos that are inclusive.
I have found some tools for creating videos that are teacher-friendly when it comes to recording and creating videos for lessons in your classroom.
PowerPoint
I know I do everything in PowerPoint, so it would only be fitting that I use it to record my video lessons. Check out Richard Byrne from Teachmade demonstrating how to record using PowerPoint as well as some of the features you can use while recording.
Screencasting
Screencasting is flexible and very versatile for any operating system. Check out Matt Bergman’s post and video about how to use screencasting and all the great options you have for screencasting. Great tips and tricks too!
How to Integrate Video into Lessons
Whole Class Instruction
Videos can be used in a whole class setting where all students are watching the same video. However, ensure that the videos you use or create have some of the elements listed above so more students can engage in the video. You can also move around the class while the video is on to observe student responses or work.
QR Codes
QR codes are a great way to access videos quickly and easily. Students just scan the QR code and the video will pop up straight away. This is great for younger students.
Gallery Walks
A gallery walk is where students move around the room reading and viewing different information about the concept being taught. Traditionally gallery walks have been used for posters or visual content but why not have a laptop with a video on it or a QR code that students scan at different stations around the room that show the content in video form?
Learning Platforms
Learning platforms are great places to store videos. Places like OneNote and Google Classroom can store not only the video but all the supporting resources students need to participate in the lesson. Once students are on the platform they can click the video and use it how they wish.
Videos have always been a tool to boost engagement but why not use them as an inclusive teaching tool? When selecting or even creating video lessons remember to always consider the elements that a video needs for it to be effective and inclusive. Video as a tool can also support the implementation of the UDL Guidelines in many ways and is a great strategy for all students when designed in the right way. Why not try creating your own lesson video using one of the tools above? Check out our Designing Inclusive Videos checklist to help you create videos that are inclusive for all your learners.
Until next time
Happy educating
Sam
References
Brame, C. (2016). Effective Educational Videos: Principles and Guidelines for Maximizing Student Learning from Video Content. CBE Life Sci Educ, 15(4). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5132380/
Donaghy, K. (2019). 1. Using film to teach languages in a world of screens. In C. Herrero & I. Vanderschelden (Eds.), Using film and media in the language classroom: Reflections on research-led teaching (pp. 3-16). Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters.
Dyslexia friendly style guide. (n.d.). British Dyslexia Association. Retrieved November 8, 2024, from https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/employers/creating-a-dyslexia-friendly-workplace/dyslexia-friendly-style-guide#
Riga, A., & Malafantis, K. (2024). Enhancing Inclusive Learning and Communication Skills with the Aid of Educational Videos. European Journal of Education and Pedagogy, 5(5), 2736-4534. https://mail.ej-edu.org/index.php/ejedu/article/view/855
Umayam, C. (2018, April 23). Five (Easy-to-Implement) Ways Video Can Have a Powerful Impact on Teaching and Learning. EdSurge. Retrieved November 8, 2024, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-04-23-five-easy-to-implement-ways-video-can-have-a-powerful-impact-on-teaching-and-learning
Wilde, H. (2024, February 16). 3 ways to make your online content more inclusive. IDEAS Disability Information. Retrieved November 8, 2024, from https://www.ideas.org.au/blogs/3-ways-to-make-inclusive-content.html
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