I recently began subscribing to the blog entitled "Disrupt Education", which is written by Kirsten Winkler. Just yesterday she made a post regarding the broad concept of using video to enhance student learning. In it, she explains that scientifically students can learn just as well from a video (neurons are activated similarly), but also cites a study which essentially states that there would be some serious downfalls if we were to just replace a lot of instruction with just showing video in class.
Here is the link for her blog: http://bigthink.com/ideas/40466?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bigthink%2Fblogs%2Fdisrupt-education+%28Disrupt+Education%29
Read the link which connects to "Dr. Derek Muller's findings" to get his description of why showing videos might lead to serious pitfalls.
This video concept led me to reflect on my student teaching experience. There were definitely times I used video to clarify or strengthen general concepts, such as showing the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us" during a non-fiction reading of Sudanese refugees. But can video help increase literacy?
It seems it definitely can for students in preschool. Here's a link which supports that notion:
http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/10/14/study-games-video-improve-preschooler-literacy.aspx
But for grades 6-12, I didn't find anything. I believe (and this is just my assumption) that once students pass their K-6 reading plateau, video can help student literacy, but not nearly as drastically as it could for younger students.
One connection I drew from student teaching was the use of animated poetry, found on a Billy Collins site (http://www.bcactionpoet.org/). I remember using these videos as an engagement tool to draw students into the poetry unit. But that's where I felt the use of video didn't quite improve literacy. Instead, it was just a tool to produce interest.
So, I guess my short conclusion of the whole matter is that video, in perhaps grades 6-12, may be used to enhance a lesson pertaining to literacy. But in the long run, it's practice that makes literacy perfect.
What these article really led me to was the use of video games to enhance or teach literacy. This will be the focus of next week's blog.
P.S. As an afterthought, "Schoolhouse Rock" anyone?
great reads. I think the part where you said that the video tool was more to produce interest in literacy is pretty accurate. I will say though that I think you have to have interest to want to learn, which will encourage the student to improve to learn about more things of interest. Although there are mixed feeling about whether or not video enhances the literacy learning, I feel as though is improves. I think it matters on if you find the right video to go with your content and what you are addressing in the lesson. Thinking back to my student teaching experience, I believe I used video a few different times, for different subjects. Science, I showed a video on the systems and how they weren't just individual, but they worked together. the students were able to see the connection, and not just read about it and memorize. Another time I used video was my Kindergarten class. It was a video on creating words with the silent 'E'. I can't remember the title of the video but it was a word machine and they were learning about the silent 'e'. After this video, all of my students could tell me about the silent 'e' and how it changed words. I also used a video on two vowels together..."When to vowels go a walking, the first one does the talking"...I think videos can be beneficial if they are chosen correctly.
ReplyDelete-Cali F
Schoolhouse Rock - a blast to the past on Saturday morning cartoons! Really thoughtful critique on using video in the classroom. I think one thing that you can keep in mind is the thought of "visual literacy." What we do know is that we can process more information faster when a visual is accompanying the text and/or audio. Some won't like that because of the idea of "imagery" but it is well documented. I think your logic does work because that is why visuals are so important to the younger grades because those images help them learn and understand the words. However, maybe that doesn't work with the older student as you have observed. This might be an interesting article for you to read about video games and literacy (http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=950566.950595 - I hope link works!). Gee is a well-known author in the area of new medial literacies.
ReplyDeleteI just couldn't resist going to YouTube and watching a Schoolhouse Rock video --- thanks for taking me back and remembering!!!
ReplyDeleteA Noun: Person, Place or Thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7CxWNY829Y&feature=related
Schoolhouse Rock!!! YES!!! :)
ReplyDeleteThe reading material your provided was very interesting. I have always though videos can be a wonderful tool for learning, but I don't think they should be the only method of learning. I remember a teacher in high school who showed videos all the time, and after a while they were more of a joke than actually helpful. I think the concept to remember is, "anything is good in moderation." As long as the videos are relevant to the learning process, and are followed up with something more than just "sit and watch," they can be very beneficial. I do wonder if - after reading your blog and related articles - videos are more supplementary.