Benefits of interactive videos for K-12 students

1. Creating series of video clips

One of the best ways to use interactive videos and increase student engagement is by incorporating classroom videos in lesson plans. As an educator, you can plan your lesson around 2-6 video clips. These could either be relevant YouTube videos, videos that you have created, or previously used videos from other educators.

After you have presented the video clip to your class, you can then plan various interactive exercises such as self-reflection, guided questions, or group discussions to discuss the topic in detail. The idea here is to use several video clips related to a particular topic in order to enhance students’ understanding.

2. Making tutorials and how-to videos 

Another interesting way to use interactive videos in eLearning is by asking students to create detailed how-to videos.

For instance, you can ask your students to explain the concept of fractions or explain the process of photosynthesis. Students can do this on a whiteboard app, record their desktop screen as they do, and share it with teachers and peers as well. These how-to videos are an excellent way to help you assess the learners and give feedback.

3. Lesson recaps

To ensure that every student pays attention in class, you can ask them to make/record a brief video recap of the lesson learned on a particular day.

Encourage students to present their learning creatively and concisely and have them submit their video either via email, Google Classroom, or whichever mode is convenient.

Video recaps are an excellent way to assess student understanding of the concept and whether you need to revisit any specific topic before moving on to the next ones.

4. Conducting Q&A sessions

You can also let your students record their responses to a series of questions after watching an interactive video in class. For instance, as your students watch and engage in an educational video, you can create a set of questions related to the topic. Students can answer these questions and send you a video response.

5. Keeping a tab on student performance

Interactive videos can also be used to keep track of student’s performance and share it with them later. Some platforms provide the option to monitor user analytics, wherein the instructors can view students’ progress through every content.

Instructors can get information about where exactly students have stopped watching or are having difficulty processing information, and which part they keep going back to.

Leveraging this kind of interactive video analytics makes you understand what interests students and which part of the video requires more explanation.

6. Reflection

Yet another interesting video teaching strategy educators can leverage is to use some of the most powerful videos from YouTube or similar sites and get their students to reflect on them. It helps students develop their critical thinking skills and apply them in real life. This learning strategy has become quite popular in recent years.

However, what is important to remember here is that the idea is not to let students simply consume the video and its content but reflect on it at a deeper thinking level. This means, encouraging them to engage with the content emotionally and reflect on what they are watching and taking out of it.

To be able to grade this assignment, you can either have students do a quick group discussion sharing their thoughts, write an exit ticket, or have interested students share their reflections on what they have seen.

7. Bringing students together for a collaborative group project

Collaborative learning allows students to brainstorm along with their peers. This exercise helps build leadership skills and critical thinking skills in students.

Teachers can bring together students in small groups to plan and co-create a video project as a team. They can either create videos, record meetings, or simply upload audio files or pictures to complete the project.