Virtually Autumn: what, when, and why video record

The theme for the rest of this week's posts, in preparation for an autumn of online instruction, is Media Resources. I'll be focusing specifically on instructor-created videos.

To begin this series of four posts, I think it makes sense to discuss the different subjects that a teacher might record to assist their students.

Subjects

I encourage you to consider recording all of your synchronous interactions with your class. That can include not only formal instruction but also office hours. The recording process is particularly easy if you are using videoconference platforms like Zoom to hold these meetings. I even use Zoom to record in-person office hours (do you remember what it was like to think about having face-to-face office hours?) More on that process tomorrow.

I do also take the time to create video lectures that I ask students to watch before class, so that we can spend our in-person synchronous time addressing their questions about the content and using/applying/discussing/practicing what they learned. These tend to be produced in one of two forms: either video of my working at a whiteboard (actually a Lightboard, like in the image below) or a screen capture of just a digital whiteboard without my face (usually me drawing on a tablet computer and recording it, like this example video).

A frame from a Lightboard (aka Learning Glass) video I produced. I have drawn with markers on a piece of glass located between me and the camera. The captions at the bottom were added afterward.

In the sciences especially, recording demonstration videos is fantastic. Most of my colleagues who are now transforming laboratory classes into online versions have been making recordings of laboratory techniques (like my example video of how to perform agarose gel electrophoresis) and also the outcomes of experiments.

Two other common subjects to record are walkthroughs and keys. If you teach a subject that requires students to follow a process that might be difficult to fully explain in writing, then a video demonstration of that process might be ideal. For example, I've used this approach to show students how to use different computer programs to analyze data, like how to use a spreadsheet to perform the chi-square statistical test. Here's a short example, where I reveal a nifty text-editing feature in MacOS.

I think that the power of video is incredibly useful to leverage when providing students with feedback! Some of my colleagues prefer to comment on student written work, like essays, using audio or video instead of only written comments, mainly because recording comments is faster than typing comments and because most students can also benefit from hearing nuances in your tone of voice. In my science classes, I have relatively few essay-style questions that I use for assessment. Instead, the types of questions I ask tend to involve analyzing and interpreting data and forming conclusions. Even items as simple as multiple-choice questions, in any discipline, can involve advanced analysis and decision-making in order to select the correct response. To help give students feedback on their work, then, I routinely create video keys to quizzes, exams, and other exercises. These videos tend to consist of me orally explaining how I arrived at the correct answer while I also sketch out diagrams, formulas, flowcharts, or other visual representations (like in this example video).

Benefits

I have recorded every single class meeting I've led for several years, and I make those videos available to my students (more on that process later this week). Benefits of doing this include making the class content available to students who were unable to attend, which will be of particular value now, at a time when we will hopefully strive to be as flexible as appropriate. Many of my students have also mentioned they like to refer back to class videos when they were unable to take notes quickly enough; some review the videos to study for tests.

Students and I both benefit from recorded office hours. Any time a student asks a question, especially if they've decided to commit the time to come seek clarification, I know that the topic has been particularly unclear and that other students will benefit from the answer to the question. So, recording and distributing my responses to those questions is particularly important to me. Further, you might relate to this feeling: a student comes to my office and asks a question, and I patiently and methodically work through responding to the student's satisfaction. The student thanks me and leaves, and then no more than five minutes later, another student comes by and asks the same question! Although I don't want them to feel badly, it takes a lot for me not initially to respond, "You should have been here ten minutes ago…I gave the most eloquent response to that question than I ever have before!" Now that recording office hours is my practice, I have been able to compile my "greatest hits" library of what I think are quality responses to common questions…to the point that I'm now curating a video Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for each class. This is a resource students can access on demand to seek resolution to their questions related to course content.

Walkthrough videos are easy for students to locate and use to learn (or re-learn) how to perform particular processes. Video keys to exams/quizzes/exercises are a really efficient way to provide feedback to all of your students. Ideally, the instructor will provide each student customized feedback at each point where improvement is possible. Practically, this is not feasible for many instructors, who have too many students enrolled in too many courses. There is not enough time to accomplish this task. So, to make the most efficient use of my time, I ask my students first to review the video key, and then if they have a question or concern that was not addressed (if something is still unclear), then I'm more than happy to meet individually to discuss additional points that need clarification.

In sum, one of the main reasons I advocate for creating videos is that the investment of time creates a resource that you can leverage, to your students' benefit, for countless academic terms to come!

Students do acknowledge the benefit of instructor-created videos. In my surveys of students, I routinely find that they highly rank the value of my videos, and this is one of the major motivations that has kept me enthusiastic about continuing to invest time in video production.

Half of students rank using my recorded lectures as essential to their success in my class (yellow). The video resources surpass in importance the other resources students can access: exercises, question-and-answer, and the textbook. Quotes from students also reveal their perception of the value of watching instructor-created lecture videos before coming to class.

Now that we have some ideas of subjects to consider recording, tomorrow I'll explore some of the many tools you can use to generate these resources. Then I describe basic editing and distribution options, and I'll finish the week with a post addressing various concerns that instructors have about using videos they have created.