Videos are a great tool to use within learning and teaching as they have the potential to encourage discussion or increase engagement amongst the students. However, it may be better practice to choose a video that is created to specifically pose a question or statement to provoke an action and/or debate from your students.
These types of videos could be case study–based videos or could be contentious statements or topics deliberately designed to provoke a response or discussion. For example, a case study video series could be released progressively, providing more information as the student(s) work through each video, giving students the opportunity to adapt their thoughts or responses as they progress. These case study videos could also deliberately leave out key information for the students to find out or discuss.
Video can be a really effective method of getting engagement or provoking a reaction, while communicating views from extreme ends of the spectrum can ignite a debate or add valuable real-world context to a piece of learning. This type of content can increase involvement from students and get them to engage more actively during sessions. There are also several other digital technologies like polling systems that can be used in conjunction with these videos and you can then get a visual representation of the views of your students.
You can create these types of experiences with existing content that you can source from either the Panopto Shared Repository or Box of Broadcasts. You can take a segment of an already created piece of media and play it either within a lecture and discuss it within the session or do it as a flipped approach, letting the students watch the clip beforehand. However, creating and designing your own content gives scope to construct something to direct the debate in a particular direction and potentially make it more challenging for your students.
If any academic staff would like more advice and guidance on how to discuss more about videos to encourage discussion or increase engagement for your teaching and learning, please contact tel@derby.ac.uk
Author: Charlotte Ellis (Learning Technology Media Advisor)