Encouraging students to cognitively engage with information while watching a video can help them understand and recall it better. Use strategies like asking guiding questions and prompting note-taking to help focus students on what is important and be active in the process of learning.
Asking guiding questions upfront for students to consider while watching a video can help prompt engagement and cognitive processing. They can help clarify the objectives of a lesson and act as a signalling device to help students focus on what is important while watching (Brame, 2016). In several studies on introductory psychology students, students who wrote answers to guiding questions before watching a video performed better on quiz questions related to those questions than students who simply took notes (Lawson, Bodle, Houlette, & Haubner, 2006; Lawson, Bodle, & McDonough, 2007). Guiding questions can help prompt higher level thinking, activate prior knowledge, and connect concepts and ideas.
Note-taking can be another good strategy for actively engaging learners while they are watching videos. Delen, Liew, and Willson (2014) found that on recall tests undergraduate and graduate students who watched video embedded in an interactive learning environment that contained tools for note-taking (among others) outperformed those who watched the video without. Another study showed that college algebra students who learned from instructor-created videos with note-taking templates outperformed those who learned from publisher-generated textbooks (Hegeman, 2015). For novice learners, consider providing a note-taking worksheet or template as a scaffold to help guide their attention and prompt metacognitive thinking.
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
Delen, E., Liew, J., & Willson, V. (2014). Effects of interactivity and instructional scaffolding on learning: Self-regulation in online video-based environments. Computers & Education, 78, 312-320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.06.018
Hegeman, J. S. (2015). Using instructor-generated video lectures in online mathematics courses improves student learning. Online Learning, 19(3), 70-87. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1067530.pdf
Lawson, T. J., Bodle, J. H., Houlette, M. A., & Haubner, R. R. (2006). Guiding questions enhance student learning from educational videos. Teaching of Psychology, 33(1), 31-33. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15328023top3301_7
Lawson, T. J., Bodle, J. H., & McDonough, T. A. (2007). Techniques for increasing student learning from educational videos: Notes versus guiding questions. Teaching of Psychology, 34(2), 90-93. https://doi.org/10.1080/00986280701291309