School Videos in the Classroom

When I was teaching, there was a common response when I told the students that we were going to watch a video: I swear some kids all but took out a pillow and blanket and prepared to get a good nap in. It can be tempting to use videos to “babysit” students while you get some grading or lesson planning done. I know I have in the past, but I was wasting what really is a wonderful teaching opportunity. Educational videos can help you achieve instructional objectives effectively, so it is important to use them in the best way possible.

When using any type of media in your classroom, it is helpful to develop a good anticipatory set. This addresses key questions and helps focus the lesson before you present the video. Ask yourself:

· What do my students need to know before we watch the video?
· How can I excite their interest and keep them focused?
· How can I let my students know what is coming in age-appropriate terms?

You can approach this in any number of ways, but I like to use pre-activities that relate to the video content. For instance, if you were showing early elementary students a video related to number words, you could have them hold up their hands. Can you show me zero fingers? Can you show me many fingers? A few fingers? This gets them thinking about the terms they will be hearing and seeing in the video.

You can also use educational videos in your anticipatory sets to jump into your lesson in a way that will generate interest and provide needed variety for students. Say, for instance, you were going to have your students start a composting program at your school to reduce waste from the cafeteria. To give them an idea of what composting is all about, you could show segments from a video directly related to that subject. This allows them to see the process in action, model the steps in the process and show why it is good for the environment.

There really are unlimited ways to use media in the classroom. If you find your students are taking out the pillow and blanket – metaphorically speaking – then make sure you are using the videos as complements to your lesson, not as the whole lesson itself. There needs to be a point, a focus, in order for children to learn and for the media to work its magic. For some tips on making the most of your anticipatory sets for video, click here.

Tags: educational videos

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.