Video and digital media are important tools that can help bolster the educational experience. The use of video in the classroom allows educators to illustrate and demonstrate complex ideas with the help of visual and audio learning elements. Learn about the benefits of teaching with video, what you can do with multimedia in the classroom, and view a variety of faculty testimonials and multimedia strategies they employ to enhance the teaching and learning experience.
Why Teach With Video?
When students have access to video content to watch outside of class, class time can be used for comprehension checks, discussion, and reinforcement of content.
Multimedia content helps to vary and enhance the learning process, and leads to better knowledge retention.
Educational video can provide more opportunities for students to engage with the content.
Students around the world can learn from course content made available through video.
Video can sometimes demonstrate complex ideas and access other times and places better than speaking can.
Video can help instructors overcome limitations like large class sizes and limited time.
What Can We Do With Video?
Instructors can use video to provide supplemental materials for their students. This can help reinforce content and give students resources to prepare for assessments.
Many professors have benefitted from using video to flip their classroom. A flipped course is one in which students absorb new material largely outside of class time.
Instructors benefit from flipped classrooms. When a course is flipped, professors have more time available to engage with their students, rather than racing through introductions to new content. Once an instructor has created video content, they possess a permanent library of learning resources which can be reused for new students in various learning contexts.
Students benefit from flipped classrooms. In a flipped course students have more opportunities to engage with their instructor and peers. Students also can take greater ownership over their education, and are allowed a level of flexibility that is unavailable in traditional class structures.
Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, are created largely through video. These courses consist of a series of learning modules that explain content, punctuated by comprehension checks at the end of each section. They are valuable for students around the world learning in diverse contexts.
Using Video at BU
BU supports multiple valuable platforms for creating and editing educational video. EdTech supports Echo360 as well as MyMedia (which includes CaptureSpace). Many BU faculty use their computer’s screencasting tools along with Adobe Creative Cloud products such as Adobe Rush, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Audition, etc., to create instructional videos.
Resource: How to Use Video as a Tool to Enhance Learning and Comprehension
Faculty Voices
Pary Fassihi, assistant director for the Center for Teaching & Learning and former CAS Writing program instructor, flipped her ESL writing course, and soon found that class time was used more effectively and that her students’ comprehension of the content improved.
Bruce Anderson of BU’s College of Arts & Sciences Earth & Environment Department flipped his class. As a result his students were better prepared for class, and he could better address student difficulties. Additionally, his student evaluations improved significantly after the course restructuring.
Wayne LaMorte of BU’s School of Public Health flipped his course using online modules. Consequently, he had more time in class for discussion and problem solving. Ninety-eight percent of his students reported that they found the modules helpful.
Lorena A. Barba, adjunct research professor, Mechanical Engineering with BU’s College of Engineering utilizes a variety of technologies to transform the classroom experience. Read about her efforts in support of flipped learning.