Five tips for connecting with your students through video

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The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the value of having alternative ways to connect with students in the absence of a traditional face-to-face classroom setting. Additionally, with ongoing development in the area of innovative learning environments, recording yourself in video format is a practical way of reaching your students at any time and at any place.

As a LEARNZ field trip teacher, I have enjoyed producing videos that connect learners to a range of inspiring people, places, and projects. They play a key role in our LEARNZ field trips website, providing ākonga with an online learning experience that expands their classroom walls.

Learning through video has a number of benefits:

  • they offer both visual and auditory options
  • they are accessible on multiple devices
  • learners can pause and rewind them
  • they are today’s basic source of information which young people are already in the habit of using.

Here are five key tips that have helped me to better connect with learners via video. I hope you find these tips useful if you do decide to go down the make-your-own-video route.

1. Copy other people

I have been part of several field trips where ‘the bugman’ Ruud Kleinpaste was our field trip guide. Ruud is a great speaker and entertainer, his years of experience fronting and appearing in TV shows was obvious when making videos with him. His ‘performances’ in front of the camera were inspiring. I couldn’t help but try to copy his expressions and mannerisms a little bit. I knew I would never be Ruud Kleinpaste, but attempting to imitate aspects of his presentation style, along with other entertaining presenters over time, has assisted greatly in crafting my own video persona.

Here are a couple of field trip video examples where I interview Ruud:

Tracking tunnels

Habitat for kiwi in Tongariro Forest

2. Exaggerate

Once you have a bit of a handle on your own video presentation style, I then recommend exaggerating it. Not to the point of being melodramatic, more like being just a bit over the top. I liken it to acting, in that I want my audience to believe what I am saying and be enthused by the content. After all, if I want students to enjoy the video I have to at least look like I’m having fun!

This tip is especially valuable if you fear the students might not be immediately interested in the content. The following clip, taken from the recent Climate Change field trip, is a good example. Climate science may not be the most riveting of topics, but believing that it is and acting accordingly goes a long way to convincing the audience that it is a topic worthy of their attention.

Exaggerate your enthusiasm 

3. Less is more

A three day LEARNZ virtual experience typically has around 12 videos in total. At 3 to 4 minutes per video that’s quite a lot of content. While there is often a sequence of videos, each one is made to stand alone. We feel that by focusing on only one topic or concept per video, the result is a more digestible watch. Too many ideas in one video can get confusing and if you rabbit on for too long your audience will simply lose interest. You need to cater for the length of attention span related to your target audience. Get to the point and make the learning intention clear.

This video from the 2017 Opera field trip is a good example where only one key idea is explored in a relatively short time frame:

Learn a stage combat secret

4. Talk to the students, not the camera

The whole idea of a LEARNZ virtual field trip is to “take” your students to inaccessible destinations. As a field trip teacher, I must engage with students in ways that connect them to the people we meet and the places we go so that they buy into the concept of “being there”. A helpful trick that I use is to imagine the students are right there with me. When I look at the camera, I imagine it is a class of students, not a camera. I say things like “right now you are in/at…” or “here you can see…” or “come with me”. Describing sounds and smells to paint a picture can also help with this engagement.

Talk to the audience

5. Find a consistent intro and outro

A consistent video beginning and ending builds familiarity and certainty. It acts like a cue for students that says “alright everyone, eyes this way – I’ve got something important to tell you so please listen carefully”. I use this technique for field trip introduction videos where it is just me in front of the camera and no field trip guide. You might notice some of your favourite YouTube or TV personalities using this technique. It is a good way to set up and frame what the learning intention of the video is, e.g. “Kia ora tātou, welcome to another exciting instalment of …in this video we are going to be looking at…” or something to that effect.

Consistent beginning and end

Making videos for your students might be something you and they find useful. They are a permanent record of instruction that are always available for future use. And given the increasingly flexible nature of teaching and learning, they might just become one of your key teaching tools.

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My reo journey continues

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Andrew is continuing to create opportunities to include a greater range of kupu and kīwaha into the video and web conference resources he develops through LEARNZ virtual field trips. Image: LEARNZ.

Caption: Andrew is continuing to create opportunities to include a greater range of kupu and kīwaha into the video and web conference resources he develops through LEARNZ virtual field trips. Image: LEARNZ.

Over time, I have come to appreciate how the Māori language is intimately woven into the fabric of nature, history, customs, and beliefs. I see much more clearly now how te reo is an essential element of Māoritanga — more than just a means to communicate. In a blog I wrote last year, titled ‘A Stranger in a Strange Land?’, I talked about why I think learning te reo is one of the best ways to develop empathy for Māori culture. In part of that blog I said that it was:
…the active learning of Māori language which I believe is the key to breaking through Pākehā paralysis to a point where Pākehā educators have an experiential understanding of Māori language and culture, not just an intellectual understanding, to make the teaching and learning environment a properly inclusive one.

(For more information on the notion of Pākehā paralysis, watch Alex Hotere-Barnes on EDtalks).

In that blog, I also explored my own te reo Māori journey. “I’ll let you know how things are progressing in my next blog!” I said. Well, here it is!

Te Reo Manahua Māori

Last year, I enrolled in Te Reo Manahua Māori, an intermediate course for te reo Māori. This course is part of CORE’s ngaiotanga/professional learning services, and is preceded by Te Reo Puāwai Māori, the Stage 1 beginners’ course. Both courses are online, with an opportunity to attend a face-to-face hui at both the beginning and end of the course.

The courses are organised within the Moodle platform, which made the content easy to follow, flexible, and allowed for a range of different media to suit various learning styles. Additionally, the weekly Adobe Connect session was a great opportunity to connect with other course participants, to share and reinforce the week’s learning. I also found the Adobe Connect sessions helpful in a sense that I could interact with others at a similar stage of te reo learning journey, which gave me a sense of reassurance that what I was doing was of value.

Commitment and encouragement

I admit that, at times, I felt somewhat overwhelmed with what I didn’t know (and that I still need to learn!) Such is the nature of learning, eh! But, making the commitment to take part in Te Reo Manahua Māori was a key step in the right direction. And it wasn’t like I felt forced to carry on with my te reo learning just because I had made this commitment — it was more that I felt encouraged, for which I give credit to the course facilitators and the way the learning experience has been structured.

Next step

Although I am no longer teaching in a classroom setting, I could certainly see how one could translate learning within the course into lessons for students. For my job as a LEARNZ virtual field trip teacher, Te Reo Manahua Māori has increased my repertoire of kupu (vocabulary), as well as the confidence to use these words; improved my whakahua (pronunciation); and I am gradually incorporating a greater range of kīwaha (idioms) into field trip videos and web conferences. My next step is continuing to search for and find opportunities to further my learning in this space.

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pohiri Moutahora

A stranger in a strange land?

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I recently read a blog post by Wharehoka Wano and watched Alex Hotere-Barnes on EDtalks. Both of these discussions centred on Māori/Pākehā dynamics within education settings. Reading Wharehoka’s blog and listening to Alex got me thinking about an experience I had a few weeks ago when I was in Whakatāne as part of the LEARNZ Waka Voyaging virtual field trip.

pohiri MoutahoraEnd of the pōhiri on Moutohorā

An honest appraisal

I don’t mind admitting that throughout the course of my life to date I have internalised some of those ‘white privilege’ examples that Wharehoka refers to in his blog. A lack of empathy and misunderstanding about Māori culture and its place in our society has surely led to a fair amount of ‘Pākehā paralysis’ on my part throughout my involvement in education.

On the other hand, I did go to a primary school that had a lot of Māori culture within its curriculum. We learned many waiata along with their actions, how to pronounce words properly, some vocabulary and phrases, different games, as well as incorporating Māori culture and history into artwork and so on. Although this was now many years ago, I can certainly credit those formal experiences with grounding me enough to at least reflect on and question my own beliefs and assumptions around issues of ‘privilege’.

What a pity this great start in Māori education didn’t extend beyond primary school!

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Once upon a story time

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story time

Do you remember story time on ‘the mat’ when you were a kid at school? I certainly have fond memories of the teacher telling stories, some from memory, but most often from a book. We all had our special places to sit and habitual behaviours that seemed to help with concentration as the story was being read. It was a time, usually in the afternoon before the home time bell went, when the whole class was relaxed and focussed on what the teacher was saying.

To be continued …

As a teacher, I too, continued with this tradition. At teachers college I learned about the benefits of reading to my students, but, at the time, I never really thought about the way this seemingly simple act of storytelling had such a positive effect on the students. Story time had the affect of unifying my class. Sitting together as one; quiet, listening, and with imaginations in full swing, watching the action unfold in front of the mind’s eye.

I enjoyed watching the students’ reactions out of the corner of my eye as I read crucial parts of the story. I remember the groan of disappointment as we finished a chapter that left us all hanging in suspense — to be continued the next day! And I was always impressed with what the students could recall about the story, even if we had had a break from it for a week or so. The story also created many opportunities for lively discussion that often promoted learning opportunities in several areas of the curriculum.

Several chapters later

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Confessions, assumptions, and keeping your educator brain alive

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Confessions of a teacher: getting the brain alive

I’ve been thinking about my recent experience in getting to grips with educational research and escaping the confines of my assumptions. My involvement in an education innovation project has enabled me to do exactly that, and I can certainly recommend it — provided you are prepared to visit spaces outside your comfort zone.

The need to go beyond your comfort zone and assumptions

Having the time to read, reflect, think, visit schools, talk with teachers and students, and engage in professional conversations about a topic of interest is like taking a very deep breath of fresh air. It’s enjoyable but scary at the same time. Scary, because, not only am I working towards an outcome that is not yet known (thanks to the design methodology process being followed), but I also realise that my educational focus has gradually narrowed over the last few years.

 

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