Math-teacher Brooke McCurdy had very little experience in front of the camera when she started enhancing her teaching with academic video, but that didn’t stop her. She discovered a feedback loop with her students was the best way to get their buy-in, and for her to improve her skills.
Watch this two-minute video where Brooke discusses what she learned from her biggest critics, and read on for the straight story in her own words.
“When I started out using academic video, there were some things that I kind of figured out along the way, so I have some tips for someone starting out with academic video. One thing that I found is you really need to be upfront with your students. I definitely tell them that this is a learning curve for me as well. I tell them that this is an ongoing process and that I will continue to make new videos and continue to put new videos out there.
By doing this, I actually feel that the students buy in more to what I’m doing. I will actually use a lot of student input in these videos as well. They give me some of the best feedback on videos that I’ve made. I will ask them what they think about these videos, what changes I should make, what videos they need, and I will take that and improve upon my videos that I’ve created.
I’ve also found that video length is important. Five- to eight-minute videos seem to go over the best with the students when it comes to these short, flipped-lesson videos. Anything above that, usually the students don’t end up finishing watching. They usually only watch about five to eight minutes worth anyway. So I’ve found that shorter videos do work best.
But again, getting that student input is one of the most important things that I could do to improve upon my videos. One thing with Mediasite that they actually really love is the feature where they can speed up my talking. The students love being to speed up or slow down my videos through Mediasite.”
Did you find this useful? We’ll be sharing more two-minute snippets of Brooke’s valuable insight in future posts. Until then feel free to watch her recent webinar in its entirety.