Learning from videos alone is not as effective as pairing videos with practice and feedback. Pick from a wide range of practice activities that can be used in conjunction with video to promote active learning.
Asking students to explain what they learned from a video can be a simple, easy way to help them consolidate and organize their learning and recognize whether they’ve understood and can recall key concepts.
Learning by comparing contrasting examples is an effective way for students to more deeply learn underlying concepts and principles (Schwartz, Chase, Oppezzo, & Chin, 2011; Gentner, Lowenstein, & Thompson, 2003). Use video to show contrasting problems or scenarios and ask students to identify similarities and differences.
Video can provide an effective modality for bringing authentic case studies to life for observation, critique, and analysis. One study by Gartmeier and colleagues (2015) on medical students and student teachers showed that video case analysis activities were more effective than role play alone—though combining the two was the most effective learning condition. Use video to show students a particular scenario and ask them to remark on what they observed as it relates to the relevant lessons, or even describe what they would have done instead.
Use videos to model skills or talk through problems, then ask students to try it out on their own. Depending on the skill, you might ask students to respond to a multiple choice question that provides automatic feedback, have them submit work for you or a peer to provide feedback on, or provide a video recording demonstrating the solution for students to compare their own work to. For a particularly complex skill, you might ask students to practice along with the video, pausing as needed to master each step.
Videos can also be used to prompt personal reflection. After a lecture, story, interview, or any other video, ask students to reflect on their own experience with the topic or share their personal opinion.
Gartmeier, M., Bauer, J., Fischer, M. R., Hoppe-Seyler, T., Karsten, G., Kiessling, C., ... & Prenzel, M. (2015). Fostering professional communication skills of future physicians and teachers: effects of e-learning with video cases and role-play. Instructional Science, 43(4), 443-462. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-014-9341-6
Gentner, D., Loewenstein, J., & Thompson, L. (2003). Learning and transfer: A general role for analogical encoding. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 393-405. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.2.393
Schwartz, D. L., Chase, C. C., Oppezzo, M. A., & Chin, D. B. (2011). Practicing versus inventing with contrasting cases: The effects of telling first on learning and transfer. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(4), 759. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025140