What makes an excellent educational video? Teachers are constantly looking for new ideas, strategies, and lessons to help their students make progress and reach their potential but often struggle to find quality educational videos. Educational videos should motivate and engage students, utilize educational technology appropriately, and contain evidence-based learning strategies.
How to Get Started
There are a lot of educational videos out there now. How do you find the good ones? The easiest way to find good educational videos is to start with a good search. You can search for educational videos by type, like “Teaching Math,” or search for a specific topic you think will be of interest to your students and teachers, like “cyberbullying.”
Search engines like Google and Bing are good places to start looking for educational videos. Simply go to your search engine and type in your topic. You can also visit the official site of any video that comes up in your search.
You’ll find links to the official site for most videos you see on YouTube, for example. The official site is a great way to find additional information about the video, the creators and how it’s being used in the classroom, among other things.
Qualities to Look for in Educational Videos
When you’re looking for good educational videos, look for ones that do the following:
- Use evidence-based learning strategies
- Give clear directions and present information in a logical way
- Are engaging for students
- Ask students to clarify or give examples
- Allow students to interact with the video
- Give students the ability to stop and start the video, rewind, fast forward, or rewatch parts of the video
- Are fairly short
- Have a clear, easily understood outline or lesson plan
- Contain a pre- and post-video assessment to measure the effectiveness of the strategy
- Include clear and detailed explanations of why the strategy is more effective than other strategies
- Include summaries of key points, strategies, or tactics that students can review and refer back to later
The Best Way to Teach Using Educational Videos
Most educational videos are not just a one-off thing. Think about how teachers integrate videos into the classroom and how they use them as part of a lesson.
Given the sheer amount of videos out there, it can be challenging to find useful ones. Educators want to make sure that the videos they use are effective and worth the time their students spend watching them. Using effective video platforms, teachers can filter video search results by a number of factors, including how engaging and effective the videos are, how easy they are to use, and how effective they are in supporting student achievement.
When looking for videos for your class, consider many factors, including what material the videos cover and your students’ learning levels and needs. Keep in mind that the best videos are ones that are designed, produced, and reviewed by individuals with teaching experience, expertise, and skills.
Conclusion
For most teachers, finding the right educational videos is a challenge. Fortunately, there is no shortage of educational videos to choose from. A good search and a solid understanding of the various factors that make a good educational video will help find the right one.
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