7 ways to use video in the classroom

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Interestingly, a high proportion of the 18 million plus 'how to' videos on YouTube have been uploaded by young people. Countless school and college-aged kids are using online video as a way to informally learn and teach – completely under their own steam, and without any adult direction!

It makes you wonder… could this be something teachers use to engage their tech-savvy students?

In short, yes! Below you’ll find 7 ways to use classroom-created video content as part of the everyday teaching and learning experience – from recording lessons for revision to encouraging online peer-assessment to sharing the learning journey with parents.

So what are you waiting for? Grab a camera and get filming!

(Image: intofilm.org)

1. Capturing learning
No matter how engaging and inspiring the lesson, the sound of a school bell tends to act as a ‘reset’ button in the minds of students – especially if it signals lunch time! By capturing key parts of a lesson with video and placing it online, teachers can create a permanent record of the learning, allowing students to access it, on-demand, at any time.

And like the ‘catch up’ services that TV channels now offer, it provides a valuable resource to students who may have missed the lesson, or who simply need a reminder of what was covered.

2. Creating learning objectives
The ability to provide engaging learning objectives, and for students to be aware of how their learning progress fits with these, is a crucial part of the learning process.

At the start of a class, play back a video clip from the students’ previous lesson and through class discussion and teacher questioning, use the clip as a basis for drawing up students’ learning objectives for the current lesson. Ask the students:

• What stage did they get to last lesson?
• What needs to be improved upon?
• What’s the main thing that they need to focus on?

Objectives can either be whole-class, or individually drawn up by students or groups within the class for project work.

At the end of the lesson, play back some key clips from the current lesson. Ask the students to think back to the objectives they set at the start of the lesson – and again, through class discussion and teacher questioning, have them assess their progress against these objectives. It’s a great way of making their progress real and tangible to students, and maintaining the learning momentum from lesson to lesson.

3. Peer assessment
Video has the power to take peer assessment to a new level – particularly in practical and performance subjects such as music, drama and dance, where it can play a crucial role in supporting students’ learning.

A student performance placed online can spark a deep discussion. Ask your students to critique each other’s work as part of their homework, perhaps giving them something particular to focus on – for example, the use of space in a dance piece or characterisation in a dramatic performance.

For examination subjects, this can be a great way of students getting familiar with the assessment criteria and mark scheme – give them a copy of it, and have them ‘mark’ each others’ performance videos, leaving a comment and justifying their marks!

4. Student-created content
It’s always been said that the best way to learn something is to teach it – and by creating their own video content, students can do just that.

After covering a concept in class, ask students to create a short video in which they explain the concept or topic in their own words – and encourage them to be creative in how they demonstrate their learning! This encourages students to really think about what’s been covered in class, and explaining a concept in their own words really helps to cement the learning in their minds.

This works particularly well as a group activity – students have a lot of fun creating videos. It’s the perfect way to make those dry, theoretical topics practical and engaging.

When it comes to revision time too, students will have access to engaging videos of themselves and their friends explaining concepts, which will be infinitely more interesting than the usual PowerPoint files and word documents!

5. Teacher-created content
It’s been proven that good quality teaching has a profound impact on students’ success and life chances – and with online video, it’s now possible for teachers within a department to create an engaging bank of videos explaining key concepts and topics for students to access at any time.

Creating a video is simply a case of explaining a concept to the camera in the normal way, with a camera pointing toward the teacher or board, then uploading this online for students to access. Alternatively, if you don’t fancy appearing on screen, screencasting software (QuickTime has this built in) and iPad apps such as 'Explain Everything' allow you to create video ‘how to’ guides. Simply record what is happening on screen and narrate over the top.

Get started by talking to your departmental colleagues about the concepts that students struggle with most, then divide them up and get filming. Share your finished videos with colleagues and pupils to see what works and what doesn’t.

6. Flipping learning
The ‘flipped classroom’ is a concept which was developed by teachers in America, and which has started to spread around the world.

(Image: sonomanews.com)

Normally, teachers stand at the front of the class and deliver content to all of the students at the same time – and after this, the students then apply the knowledge, often as a homework task. The ‘flipped’ concept turns this model on its head – instead of standing in front of the class and delivering the content, the teacher creates an online video, which students watch before the lesson.

This frees up class time for activities which let students apply that knowledge – and frees up the teacher to circulate the classroom and deliver more personalised support to students.

With online video, students can learn at their own pace, on any device, anywhere – putting them in complete control of when, where and how they learn.

7. Sharing the learning journey with parents
Online parental reporting is now a familiar feature in many secondary schools – but often, it revolves around dry numbers, figures and charts. Parents may be able to find out that little Johnny has risen 2 sub levels in Music, but what does that really tell them?

By using video to share students’ learning journeys with parents, schools can provide a window into students’ school lives and learning which is so much more engaging and insightful than numbers alone.

The question ‘what did you do at school today?’ has become something of a running joke, because it’s so difficult for parents to get a sense of what their children are doing and learning during the school day – but by using online video to share the learning journey, schools can finally answer that question for parents.

By James Cross, Educator in Residence at MediaCore.

Interested in more ways to use technology in the classroom? Subscribe to our e-learning publication, e-Learning UPDATE for access to new issues, archived articles and 7 free training videos. It's CPD online!

7 strategies for effective group work

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In order to ensure excellent learning, teachers need to support their students in developing the skills that they need to work effectively with one another – ‘Work together’ is one of the 16 Habits of Mind of the most successful people! 

You may have heard of Dr Spencer Kagan’s collaborative learning structures. These are a range of approaches to group work that develop students' independent and collaborative learning skills - and make group work worth your while!

In a recent issue of Creative Teaching and Learning, Paul Fleming of Sedgefield Community College (a secondary school in Durham) shared with us his school’s adaptation of Kagan’s work, combining it with ideas from Paul Ginnis’ Teacher’s Toolkit to select 7 group work strategies to use across the whole school. 

Each of their chosen strategies was designed to support learning in a specific way. 

Perhaps you could spice up your group work with some of the strategies outlined below!

Strategy	Icon	Purpose	What it involves
One Stray		To support the creation of new groups	A strategy that involves students discussing an issue in groups. At the end of a specified period of time, we would then ask one student to ‘stray’ from their original group and move to work with a new group in the class.
Round Robin		To support the development of ideas across groups	Students work on their own answer initially working in a small group. After a specified period of time, the work would move to the next group and the new group would continue with the answer now in front of them.
Jobs For All		To support effective discussion through consistent roles	Students are discussing an issue in groups, but each student has a specific role. For example, one will be the chairperson, one the scribe, one the spokesperson, etc
Talking Chips		To encourage students to think about all contributions	All students in a group will have a set number of chips/tokens. In order to speak in a discussion, students need to spend one of their talking chips to get permission to contribute.
Ranking Exercise		To encourage students to negotiate to come to an agreement	These tasks all involve students working in groups to take a series of ideas and rank them in order of importance, relevance, etc.
Playing Cards		To encourage group discussions through a series of games	A series of strategies that involve students working in small groups answering questions on quiz cards or organising cards into different sequences, order, etc.
Show Down		To initiate peer assessment of learning	All students in a group will complete a task individually. When the teacher calls ‘Showdown’, each student will share their response with the others in their group who will then decide which is their favourite response.

Use these consistently across the curriculum and your students will soon be experts - eager to share and show off their ideas! Not only that, but they will be developing many of the key Habits of Mind, such as the ability to work together, communicate clearly and listen and understand.

This blog post is based on the article, 'Strategies for thinking' by Paul Fleming in vol. 4.1 of Creative Teaching and Learning magazine. It's a fab piece, packed full of practical ways to turn your school into a Thinking School. Read it here!

Reading in roles - Collaborative reading task (with free resources!)

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Reading can often become a very isolated activity in the schools. Regular classroom reading sessions are great for getting kids in the habit of reading, but children are social creatures and too often, such sessions involve sitting in silence with a book the child may or may not find interesting. Not many skills being developed there!

Reading at GCSE level and beyond requires a range of skills. Students have to read for meaning (hidden or otherwise) and form opinions. They will have to question a text, summarise it, clarify it to themselves and the examiner, and even make predictions about what the text implies will happen next.

You don't have to wait until the students are studying GCSE English to teach these skills... you can start as early as primary school!

Ever heard of the reciprocal reading roles? 
If you're a subscriber to our magazine, you'll be familiar with this reading task as it's often featured in the free cross curricular project plan published with each issue.

The purpose of this activity is to encourage active thinking and reading through close examination of a text. This can be fiction, non-fiction, a short story, an extract from a novel, a historical account - anything you like!

This activity can be used by primary teachers in Years 3-6, and also in secondary schools, in years 7-9.

Here's how it works:

1. Split your class into groups of four (five, if absolutely necessary, but four is preferable).

2. Assign each student with the group a reading role. The roles are:

• SUMMARISER – Think beyond what actually happens in the text. Identify the three most important events/details. Why are they important? Are they connected in any way?
• QUESTIONER – Pose at least three questions which look at the text in depth. Try to ask open, challenging questions. Address confusions that will encourage thought and provoke discussion. 
• CLARIFIER – Make a note of any words or phrases that will need to be checked. Are there any ideas or issues that need to be clarified to make the reading clear and easy to understand? To help to clarify, can you think of any ways that this section links with other sections and what you already know? 
• PREDICTOR – Identify at least three text-related predictions, based on how your response to the text is developing. This will help your group to articulate what will happen next.

If there is a fifth group member, he or she becomes the group director, ensuring all the roles are undertaken conscientiously in the group.

3. Hand out the reading roles cards (these can be downloaded from our website here). These explain what each role entails in more detail. They will need to be cut out, beforehand if more convenient, and folded so they stand like place names. The tabs on the outer edges can be folded inwards to increase stability.

4. Each group member reads through the text from their assigned perspective. They work independently, taking responsibility for their own role, but in a collaborative way, discussing their findings with the group and making links between each role.

5. Students record their findings by contributing to the group record sheet (download this here). This grid can be photocopied at the end and distributed to each member for a permanent record.

You can download an alternative collection sheet here. This splits the main aspects of the text down into sections (i.e. key people, actions, locations, links). Students can then categorise their summary/clarifications/questions/prediction according to each area.

You many need to spend some time beforehand explaining the reciprocal reading roles to your students, but it won't be long before they've gotten the hang of it! This activity can be used over and over again, as students take on different roles and develop a wide range of reading skills, ready for use later on in their schooling.

This activity was designed by Jane Jones. Jane creates the cross curricular projects included for free with each issue of Creative Teaching and Learning magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine here.

Interested in our cross curricular projects?

Subscribers to Creative Teaching and Learning can access all our cross curricular projects for free. If you're not a subscriber, don't panic! You can purchase the projects for £36 each, no subscription required.

Projects available for purchase include:

• The Princes in the Tower - A historical investigation

• Investigating local history

• Mysteries of the Middle Ages

• World War II

• The Titanic
• The Olympics
• Tutankhamun and the Ancient Egyptians