Month: December 2020

Muller, D. A. (2008). Designing effective multimedia for physics education. Sydney: University of Sydney.

https://www.sydney.edu.au/science/physics/pdfs/research/super/PhD(Muller).pdf

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Derek Muller (creator of ‘Veritasium’ on YouTube), in his PhD thesis, shows that science education videos need to start with students’ misconceptions to be effective. A straightforward exposition can be worse than no instruction at all, because students do not change their mistaken views but do become more confident that they know how something works.

See also these YouTube videos:

• Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos
• The key to effective educational science videos – Derek Muller – TEDx Sydney

Brame, C. J. (2016). Effective educational videos: Principles and guidelines for maximizing student learning from video content. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(4), es6.

https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-03-0125

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A clear, short, and highly readable review paper that discusses research on educational video and provides practical advice on optimizing three aspects of using video in education effectively:

1. Managing cognitive load:
   • Use signaling to highlight important information.
   • Use segmenting to chunk information.
   • Use weeding to eliminate extraneous information.
   • Match modality by using auditory and visual channels to convey complementary information.
2. Maximizing student engagement:
   • Keep each video brief.
   • Use conversational language.
   • Speak relatively quickly and with enthusiasm.
   • Create and/or package videos to emphasize relevance to the course in which they are used.
3. Promoting active learning:
   • Package video with interactive questions.
   • Use interactive features that give students control.
   • Use guiding questions.
   • Make video part of a larger homework assignment.

Or, more concisely (quote from the conclusion):

• Keep videos brief and targeted on learning goals.
• Use audio and visual elements to convey appropriate parts of an explanation; consider how to make these elements complementary rather than redundant.
• Use signaling to highlight important ideas or concepts.
• Use a conversational, enthusiastic style to enhance engagement.
• Embed videos in a context of active learning by using guiding questions, interactive elements, or associated homework assignments.

Kim, J., Guo, P. J., Seaton, D. T., Mitros, P., Gajos, K. Z., & Miller, R. C. (2014, March). Understanding in-video dropouts and interaction peaks inonline lecture videos. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 31-40).

https://doi.org/10.1145/2556325.2566237

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Empirical study of drop-out rates and viewing statistics in a large number of edX course videos.

Peaks in viewing numbers – indicating rewinding and re-watching – occur around visual transitions. Students go back to a slide that’s suddenly gone and use the transitions as visual ‘bookmarks’ to re-watch or rewind to a particular explanation or section of the video.

Therefore, avoid taking away diagrams and other visual aides too soon and/or abruptly. Include clear visual anchors (e.g. title cards) at the start of sections, provide timestamps, or cut up longer videos into shorter ones.