What is interactive video method of teaching?

If you are a teacher, you know the power of a great read aloud in your classroom. You have those beloved books that you go back to year after year, because they provoke strong emotions and meaningful conversations with your students. Those books help you teach multiple strategies and best of all, model for students the transformative power of reading!

This year, we hope that even with all of the challenges you are still investing in the well worn practice of opening a great book with your students (even if over a computer) and reading aloud with stopping points for thinking aloud, prompting and reflection.

What is Interactive Video Aloud?

Consider all of the great teaching moves and learning opportunities with a great read aloud. And now picture the same process, but instead your text is a short compelling video rather than a picture or chapter book. Interactive Video Aloud is a process where teachers engage students in academic discourse around a shared video. This process invites students to do the rich thinking – inferring, synthesizing, analyzing part to whole relationships etc, that then can name and then apply to print texts they are reading.

Have you ever watched a movie with someone who has already seen it and they comment on scenes throughout the whole show? If you have that friend (or ARE that friend) you know it’s not the way to enjoy a film. Similarly, the first time you share a video with your students, we suggest you do so for ENJOYMENT.

Let the students experience the full video, before trying to use it for deeper work. Once students have experienced the video, they might have their own thoughts and reflections to share initially. Depending on your time, encourage them to share. Then you’ll want to watch the video again, this time offering students certain lenses to look for, stopping the video at certain points to highlight authors craft, mood, character trouble etc.

How to Engage during Interactive Video Aloud

Why should I include Interactive Video Aloud?

1. ​It scaffolds students to deeper analysis &  interpretation. Students who aren’t quite transferring skills can practice doing that work with a video as a text first.  This is especially supportive of English Language Learners. 
2. It is engaging for all students  : Video aloud isn’t just for kids who need more support. This is a process that helps all students want to show up!
3. It is a tool that transfers to in-person, remote and hybrid learning! Finally, with our time and teaching tools being stretched in new ways this year, we have found short videos are incredible versatile. 

Where can I get short engaging videos?

We love Disney Pixar shorts! The video above is from the a recent advertisement in the UK and it moved a group of teachers to tears when we watched it together. We discussed how you could use it with a class to talk about character change, relationships between characters, theme, mood, how setting affects the mood of the story and more! Just three minutes and we were ready to create stopping points and bring our students int.  You can find that specific video here. ( Just make sure to grab some tissues).

But if you are looking for videos that have been vetted by teachers, then you’ve got to check out this padlet from Hannah Kolbo at TCRWP. They were selected with 4th graders in mind who are doing a unit on Literary Analysis. However, we’ve watched each video ourselves and can see lots of possibilities for classroom use beyond that specific unit.

We would love to hear how this process works in your classroom! Off you go, teachers 🙂

Interactive videos are one of the most frequently used and reliable teaching aids in today’s virtual learning environment. They ensure effective and efficient learning for both the students and teachers.

In this blog, we explore some of the key benefits of interactive videos and how they can be used in eLearning for K-12 students specifically.

Apart from being easily accessed anytime and anywhere, the use of interactive videos in eLearning for K-12 students offers many other benefits, including-

Immersive and engaging learning

Interactive videos are very immersive and are specifically designed to be engaging given that learners can be inconsistent at times, especially the K-12 students, as their attention span can be very short. They are designed in a creative and captivating style to catch their attention and motivate them to watch and learn.

Personalized learning experiences

Interactive videos for K-12 offer a certain sense of user control in a way that allows learners to design their own virtual learning environment and experience. It enables students to watch and learn at their own pace without any external pressure.

Convenience and flexibility

Apart from the above-mentioned benefits, interactive videos also offer great convenience to students and teachers. This is simply because they can be delivered virtually and are perfect for online and blended learning.

1. Creating series of video clips

One of the best ways to use interactive videos and increase student engagement is by incorporating classroom videos in lesson plans. As an educator, you can plan your lesson around 2-6 video clips. These could either be relevant YouTube videos, videos that you have created, or previously used videos from other educators.

After you have presented the video clip to your class, you can then plan various interactive exercises such as self-reflection, guided questions, or group discussions to discuss the topic in detail. The idea here is to use several video clips related to a particular topic in order to enhance students’ understanding.

2. Making tutorials and how-to videos 

Another interesting way to use interactive videos in eLearning is by asking students to create detailed how-to videos.

For instance, you can ask your students to explain the concept of fractions or explain the process of photosynthesis. Students can do this on a whiteboard app, record their desktop screen as they do, and share it with teachers and peers as well. These how-to videos are an excellent way to help you assess the learners and give feedback.

3. Lesson recaps

To ensure that every student pays attention in class, you can ask them to make/record a brief video recap of the lesson learned on a particular day.

Encourage students to present their learning creatively and concisely and have them submit their video either via email, Google Classroom, or whichever mode is convenient.

Video recaps are an excellent way to assess student understanding of the concept and whether you need to revisit any specific topic before moving on to the next ones.

4. Conducting Q&A sessions

You can also let your students record their responses to a series of questions after watching an interactive video in class. For instance, as your students watch and engage in an educational video, you can create a set of questions related to the topic. Students can answer these questions and send you a video response.

5. Keeping a tab on student performance

Interactive videos can also be used to keep track of student’s performance and share it with them later. Some platforms provide the option to monitor user analytics, wherein the instructors can view students’ progress through every content.

Instructors can get information about where exactly students have stopped watching or are having difficulty processing information, and which part they keep going back to.

Leveraging this kind of interactive video analytics makes you understand what interests students and which part of the video requires more explanation.

6. Reflection

Yet another interesting video teaching strategy educators can leverage is to use some of the most powerful videos from YouTube or similar sites and get their students to reflect on them. It helps students develop their critical thinking skills and apply them in real life. This learning strategy has become quite popular in recent years.

However, what is important to remember here is that the idea is not to let students simply consume the video and its content but reflect on it at a deeper thinking level. This means, encouraging them to engage with the content emotionally and reflect on what they are watching and taking out of it.

To be able to grade this assignment, you can either have students do a quick group discussion sharing their thoughts, write an exit ticket, or have interested students share their reflections on what they have seen.

7. Bringing students together for a collaborative group project

Collaborative learning allows students to brainstorm along with their peers. This exercise helps build leadership skills and critical thinking skills in students.

Teachers can bring together students in small groups to plan and co-create a video project as a team. They can either create videos, record meetings, or simply upload audio files or pictures to complete the project.

Interactive videos are an easy and excellent way to make learning more engaging, and fun for K-12 students. Using the strategies discussed above, you can not only maximize the impact of interactive videos in the K-12 classrooms but also ensure that they serve as an excellent teaching aid for teachers and students to connect and inspire each other.

What is interactive learning videos?

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