Engaging Students:

Using Video to Engage Students

By Holley Baker, Instructional Designer and Bill Bukowski, Instructional Designer

Setting up a virtual classroom is remarkably similar to setting up your face-to-face class. You create a syllabus for both, plan ways to deliver the class content and determine how you will assess your students' progress in both. The main difference is that in a face-to-face class you have impromptu teaching moments and make connections that engage your students. These have to be carefully planned in an online course.

One easy and effective way to engage your distance students is to add instructor videos. These videos can range from your welcome message to a demonstration of a concept, or even taking your students on a virtual field trip. Once you know the fundamentals of creating videos, your imagination is your only limit. In this article, we will introduce you to some benefits and functions of different instructor videos. Our goal is to give you information and to hopefully inspire you to look for ways to add videos to your online classes.

The first videos we will discuss fall under the umbrella of your "first-day" activities. Welcome videos, instructor bios, and announcement videos help you put out all of your administrative information. A good welcome video introduces your students to the class and what they will learn over the semester. Communicate your policies and expectations in your welcome message to lay the foundation of your class. The benefit of creating a welcome video is that you can lay all of your class information out and students can rewatch the video any time they have administrative questions.

Announcement videos are a quick and easy way to communicate new information to your students. You can share overall class feedback for assignments, connect your class to relevant current events, and remind students of upcoming assignments. These are relatively short videos and can be created in less time than it takes to write the announcements in Blackboard or an email. The overall goal of these administrative videos is to establish your presence in the virtual classroom. Using a video instead of text adds the human connection in a digital space.

The next type of instructor video you can use in online instruction is content videos. Content videos are the meat and potatoes of your class and can help engage your students with the concepts you are teaching. There are a wide variety of formats that you can create, including lecture-style presentations, demonstrations, interviews, interactive videos, and more. The key goal in these videos is to capture your students' attention, not exhaustively cover the content. Remember that most viewers disengage with information-heavy videos after approximately 7-10 minutes. Use your videos to complement learning activities, required readings, and other resources instead of duplicating an hour‑long lecture.

Whether you create your own videos or curate videos from online resources, they are a powerful tool that can help you build an engaging virtual classroom. Each type of video serves a different function in your class and diversifies how your students engage with the content. Experiment with these videos as you develop your online class to create a road map that works best for you and your students. For more information on how to set these videos up and publish them, please refer to our article on "Video Creation".