Guidelines for Using School Videos Effectively in Elementary Lessons

Effective Application
School videos can be an effective teaching tool in your classroom when they are used correctly. They can help students to see history as it happens; they can be used to enhance visual memory; and they reach children with a wide variety of learning styles.

Incorporating video into your lessons can also help to bring fresh and timely information into your classroom. Students can be exposed to people, places and events that other options that cannot be reached through other resources. It can enhance the lesson or unit of study as it can be manipulated to fit the specific requirements of your lesson.

While school videos have been used as mere time fillers in certain situations, such an application ignores the educational value that these tools can provide. But, in order to maximize the value of the experience and launch effective lessons with video use, there are seven guidelines to remember.

1. Always Preview
Not all content of a video will apply to your lesson or to your students. Therefore, it is important that you view the videos before using them in your lesson to determine what is appropriate and what portion will actually engage your students in learning the lesson you set out to teach. Pick specific clips that match your subjects and look for segments that call for student response or interaction. Understand your purpose for showing the video to be able to measure its effectiveness later.

2. Determine Reason for Viewing
Just playing a video without introducing concepts to your students will ensure that many of your students will miss the point. Instead, introduce the piece and point out what you want them to look for or pay attention to as it will focus attention, encourage active viewing and provide the student with an objective.

3. Segmenting is Good
Most school videos contain a great deal of information and you want to be sure your students can easily digest it. By segmenting the video into clips, students can view more manageable chunks. When you incorporate hands-on activities or discussions, your students are much more likely to meet the learning objectives of the lesson.

4. Pre- and Post-Viewing Activities are Important
Pre-viewing activities help you to understand your students' prior knowledge, to introduce necessary vocabulary and to set the stage for new learning. Activities after the video allow your students to reinforce, review, apply or extend their knowledge in a meaningful way.

5. Use the Features Available to You
The pause, rewind, fast forward and advance features of the VCR are there for a reason, so use them. Both you and your students can point out things on a frozen screen to help encourage comprehension and retention. You can also play the video without sound or without visual, allowing your students to create their own interpretation of what was said or shown.

6. The Remote Control is Your Friend
Always be sure the remote control is available and has working batteries. This gives you the ability to move around the room and use the features mentioned in number 5 at any time during the use of school videos. You can enjoy the flexibility and movement of the presentation when you have a remote in your hand.

7. Frame Advance
While this one was mentioned before, I felt it was important enough to bring up again as it allows you to move the video one frame at a time. This can be essential when watching such events as the movements of an animal running or the hatching of an egg.

No matter what your motives are for incorporating video into your classroom, the benefits can be maximized when following specific guidelines. Once you have these in place, you and your students will have a more rewarding experience.

If you're ready to start experiencing the benefits of using video in the classroom, your next step is to download the free video and expert guide "The 7 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make Using Video in the Classroom" right now.