Good videos have a clearly defined goal. Ask yourself the following questions.
- What do you want to achieve?
- Why do you want to achieve this?
- How will you achieve it?
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!
– Benjamin Franklin (supposedly)
Criteria for good teaching videos
Checklist (excerpt) by ETH, LET/Educational Development and Technology, 2015
Structure
- The video is well structured (with e.g. introduction, consolidation, examples, conclusion), perhaps in chapters (simplifies repetition)
- The video is well aligned with the learning environment/entire course (learning objectives, activities, overview)
- The video does not exceed 6 minutes
- The video can be part of a playlist (title, length, short description of content)
Authentic student world
- The video is understandable to the target group (language, content)
- The video uses examples which are suitable and authentic for the target group
- The video ties in with the previous knowledge of the target group
- Faculty act authentically in the video – slips of the tongue and other mistakes are fine as long as they are not repetitive and do not disrupt learning
Activation of students
- The video incorporates activation tasks (e.g. interim questions or final quizzes) which are directly related to video content
- The faculty in the video make contact with students (e.g. by asking them to reflect). They show their interest in the content
- The faculty link the video’s content with further concepts, examples, analogies, in-depth material, etc.
Optimal didactic media
You will have reached the optimum if the strengths of the video medium have been exploited. The content is imparted and learning objectives are achieved more effectively than would be possible using other media (text, images, live presentations). The selected design methods support the content as the learning objectives, and visual and audio channels are used optimally (i.e. they augment learning) and do not overload the working memory (e.g., pauses are integrated).
