All nine FeedbackFruits tools are now available in Brightspace (via the Existing Activities button). Over the next few months, we’ll be spotlighting the different tools to help you explore practical ways to foster student-centred learning. This month we’re showcasing a tool that can get students more engaged in watching and discussing videos: Interactive Video.
The Interactive Video activity allows you to take videos you find online—or ones that you create yourself—and turn them into interactive activities by adding discussion prompts, multiple-choice questions or reflection cards along the video timeline. Instead of just watching a video, students can start conversations about what they’re experiencing, read what their peers think and reflect on the experience—all without having to leave the video.
Use Case: Using an Interactive Video as a Pre-Class Activity
Turn a video into a pre-class activity that helps prepare students for information or activities that will happen in class. Choose a video that will be applicable to your learners -it might summarize a topic, provide a different perspective or delve more deeply into one particular area. Once you have your video selected, create your FeedbackFruits Interactive Video, adding questions like:
- “This video looks more closely at the role of women in work in Victorian households. What changes when we examine an issue from someone else’s perspective? How will you include different perspectives in your midterm project?”
- “In class we briefly looked at the manufacturing sector, but this video examines it in detail. Find two points in the video that bring up topics you will need to address in your project. Flag them for your group by starting a conversation at those points.”
- “The content in this video is challenging, and introduces a lot of new terminology. We’ll address the terms and the content more thoroughly in class. But please start a conversation on at least one point in the video on something that is unclear to you.”
Once you have added all the questions and discussion prompts, it’s a great idea to give students early access so they have ample time to complete the activity ahead of class. You’ll also want to give yourself time to review their responses before class so you can prepare your activities or lectures to respond to—and expand on—the questions and conversations that come up in the video.
You can use this activity at any point in the semester to:
- Add supplemental information and provide room for free-form, ungraded discussions on extra material
- Turn recorded lectures into Interactive Videos, ultimately empowering students to ask questions in context (e.g. directly in the video at the specific point they are struggling with)
- Facilitate smaller, more focused, conversations by using Interactive Video’s group feature
Interactive Video is a flexible activity that can be applied to any subject at any level. No matter what you teach, it can add an interesting and interactive learning element to your course. If you’d like help using this activity in your class, or brainstorming ways it could work for you, reach out to us to schedule a one-on-one consultation.