Video is one of the most powerful learning mediums for students at all levels of education. Today, more than 50% of students on YouTube watch videos to help them understand educational materials. Videos aren’t just powerful visual tools; they are also drawing more learning engagement than ever before.
But positive engagement can take time to create, especially for today’s learners. With billions of distractions both online and offline, video alone is rarely enough to engage modern students. To cut through the noise of millions of hours of content, you need to take a strategic stance for increasing student engagement in a step-by-step fashion.
In this blog post, we explain the strategies that increase student engagement through video content, focusing on the issues that educational organizations face every day.
Why Educational Videos Should Be Optimized
There’s no question that properly executed videos have a marked impact on viewers. Students use videos to bolster their current educational goals, direct their attention to new topics, and enhance skills in their chosen field. For this reason, creating optimized educational videos is paramount for increased engagement in the long term.
There are three basic benefits gained from educational video optimization:
- Students can identify problems easier.
- Students curate better memories.
- Students have increased motivation.
With properly optimized videos, students have the opportunity to enjoy an enhanced learning experience, a stronger commitment to their work, and a passion for learning that assists them along their chosen educational journeys. Learning how to increase engagement through best video practices will greatly enhance outcomes for students and your production teams alike.
Ten Strategies to Increase Student Engagement
Increasing student engagement through video content is relatively quick, efficient, and cost-effective. Beginning the optimization process now will prevent hiccups from affecting video rollout in the future, which could be much more costly to fix.
Here are ten of the most important strategies for increasing student engagement with educational videos.
1. Implement the flipped classroom model
Use your video content to instruct students while outside of class, providing them with actionable projects or preparations to complete once they return to the classroom. Encourage students to present a small amount of what they learned during each lecture session.
2. Boost organization
Make your video content quick and easy to find online. Boost your organization by leveraging metadata and tagging protocols to locate footage in a simple database search. Clearly naming or marking your videos is another excellent way to do this.
3. Distribute course materials
Use video content to distribute course materials before lecture times, providing students with a strong groundwork for the learning session.
4. Shorten clips
Research has revealed that video clips shorter than two minutes long are likely to net the highest amount of engagement.
5. Get student feedback
Directly ask your students about how they perceive your video content. What do they like? What could be better?
6. Add captions
Many students prefer to watch videos without audio, while others require subtitles to accommodate special needs. Add generated captions to your videos to provide universal access for all students.
7. Develop short video series
Create a short video series with storylines, humor elements, or timely updates released to students through a drip campaign. Series-style videos have the potential to get students talking about their content, which will drive shares on social media.
8. Add a touch of humor
Laughter is the best medicine, and when combined with educational content, it can dramatically improve student engagement in your message and subject matter. Avoid accidental “tune out” by providing a casual, humorous tone at appropriate moments.
9. Consider user-generated video content (UGC)
Allow students to create and submit UGC for learning purposes. Students will be highly engaged with their tasks and be excited to combine learning outcomes with their unique voice and style.
10. Focus on quality over length
Longer videos are not necessarily better. As you generate content for students, be mindful of the quality going into each video, including its audio, video, and dynamic elements.
Supercharge Your Educational Video Hosting with Warpwire
Increasing student engagement is a marathon, not a sprint. When it comes time to locate a platform that protects, analyzes, and enhances the impact of your content, look no further than the team at Warpwire.
Warpwire is a leading provider of educational video hosting, providing services to dozens of higher ed organizations all over America. It proudly offers:
- Asset-level security
- Third-party integrations
- Multi-source capture
- Adaptive streaming for media playback
- Content tagging and metadata options
Warpwire’s video platform provides analytics to help you track media assets, media libraries, and system-wide usage. Designed to explore engagement, Warpwire’s reports provide deep insight into how your institution interacts with media.
To see how we can help you better leverage your video content, get in touch with us today!
