The online education market is exploding. Covid lockdowns have accelerated the need for online learning and educational videos. Many teachers and non-teachers alike have responded in continuous flow of educational video after video. That’s great for learning, but that also means there is a lot more competition to make your educational videos stand out.
What can savvy Youtubers teach us about engaging viewers? And importantly, what can teachers teach us about quality learning? Should we be combining them both?
Youtubers’ secret sauce for engagement
In the previous blog post “Communicating passion in the economy of attention”, I analyzed the ingredients successful Youtubers use to amass millions of subscribers and even more video views. In a nutshell, if you want to be a successful communicator on platforms like Youtube you need the following:
- Passion and expertise for the niche subject
- Naturalness and authenticity (which should come from you passion and desire to share your passion with others)
- Storytelling skills in the attention economy
- Audio and video tech skills
- Ability to analyze and track metrics to improve storytelling asd tech skills
- … and, oh yeah, a generous pinch of charisma.
But these are just savvy and entertaining millennials, right? Are there any educational Youtubers that use the same ingredients?
Yes.
Educational Youtubers: 2 types
Vsauce at over 12 million subscribers has a similar recipe, or secret sauce, for success. Michael Stevens is an engaging, passionate, quirky — and a non-millennial no less — presenter who also piques the curiosity right away, with engaging and provocative stories about scientific concepts, and of course with editing that allows for zero downtime to create an endless stream of intensely interesting science.
So, do educational videos need to follow this millennial algorithm for success? No.
Sal Khan’s Youtube channel has over 6.5 million subscribers and he uses only a digital blackboard and just a voice over. No sophisticated edits, sumptuous scenery, or incessant soundscape. For Sal, it was a conscious decision not to show his face, or use visual or sound effects. His aim was to create the intimate experience of a tutor working next to you, a friendly voice helping you get through the complicated math and science ideas that are worked out in real time on the blackboard.
And Sal delivers.
Sal has a knack for breaking down complicated concepts and skills into manageable pieces and explaining and demonstrating them with great clarity. Does he need charisma like the above-mentioned Youtubers? He sure does – but he has it in abundance. Although we never see him in his teaching videos, Sal’s voice has an deep and authoritative timbre that radiates empathy, an authentic passion for the subject, and a geeky and spontaneous sense of humor.
So, what approach should be taken by serious educators who want to share their knowledge, passion and teaching?
Who is your target learner?
Clearly, as any marketer and teacher knows, we have to know who our target audience/learner is. General people with an interest in the subject matter? Serious students who will put in the effort to practice and therefore expect practice? These learners are not only interested in declarative knowledge, or knowing about something, they want to use that knowledge to become procedural knowledge, or know how. Sal’s students are of this type, and they want procedural knowledge. On the other hand, is the student someone who simply wants to learn more about the subject and increase their declarative knowledge? These are Vsauce’s subscribers and they are not looking to master skills with practice; they want edutainment.
Where is your target learner? And how much attention do they have? (Or, how long should your videos be?)
If you are preparing to make educational videos, are your learners paying customers of course platforms like Udemy or Coursera? Coursera courses have a more academic reputation and many of their courses are affiliated with name brand universities. Udemy has academic subjects but more general topics, too, very often shorter in duration. Thinkific, Teachable and Skillshare also host a wide variety of courses. Because the learners on these platforms pay, they are at least mildly serious and expect well organized courses with good video, sound and lighting; they also expect practice and often some kind of certificate proof of the learned skill to put on resumes or LinkedIn.
Perhaps your target audience is on video platforms like Youtube, Facebook, or Tiktok. Many educational videos on these free platforms serve marketing purposes for the instructor who may have longer and more formal courses for sale on course platforms.
Most learners on the longer-play video platforms like Youtube and Facebook are happy to just acquire some knowledge and do not expect homework. So, you have to think about how much time they have to watch videos. It is interesting to note that several Youtuber stars like Logan Paul have recently started making shorter content videos between 4 to 6 minutes in duration, which is the recommended duration for lesson videos on course platforms like Udemy. Even Sal Khan’s videos tend to be under 7 minutes. These are the most practical video lengths for someone to get through educational videos during their own free time, lunch breaks or commutes to and from school/work.
However, if TikTok or Youtube Shorts are the platforms of your target viewer, then about 60-second educational videos are the norm. TikTok in 2021 has been trying to encourage more original content and educational content and so has made it possible to make videos up to 3 minutes. It should be noted that the average length of entertaining (not educational) TikTok videos is around 20 seconds, which is too short for instructional videos. Even 60 seconds puts extreme limits on the type of content that can be taught.
So, what can the trained educator bring into this mix of algorithm preferences, storytelling and short attention spans?
Lesson planning and educational video planning
Unrealistic mastery expectations
In skills-oriented subject matter like language learning, the traditional 3P (Present-Practice-Produce) approach to lesson planning still dominates. Here, the teacher presents the content, like the present perfect verb tense, and then gets the students to Practice with structured exercises, and finally creates an activity in which students are supposed to Produce the language to complete the activity. This logical progression makes sense, but is unrealistic in the expectation that students can immediately go from Practice to Produce.
In many “free” educational videos and paid courses, especially by professional teachers, the lesson introduces the learning point which is then explained to the viewers. The instructor then models on or two examples and then provides a few practice examples for the learners to complete. We can clearly see that this sequence derives from the 3P approach, or more accurately, the first 2 Ps: Present and Practice. For many skills, like math, this is sufficient, as long as there is enough mindful practice.
Raising awareness
Back to pedagogy. The shortcoming of the 3P approach led educators to pay more attention to the cognitive processes associated with learning, specifically attention, working memory and short- and long-term memory. The emphasis and somewhat less lofty goal of lessons was therefore shifted away from mastery (i.e., going from practice to produce) and towards raising awareness. Two popular examples in language education are Task-based and ESA (Engage-Study-Activate) approaches.
Although there are different versions of task based learning, the lesson is designed according to a task cycle and the iteration of the same same task. More specifically, the instructor introduces a task that requires a certain skill or knowledge, like the present perfect verb tense; the task is performed by the students, and then performed/illustrated by the instructor in a more expert way, which students compare with their own performance and note the differences; finally, students perform the activity again as an improved second version.
The ESA approach is a reformulation of the 3P approach, but offers more flexibility in when to strategically Present (Activate), Practice (Study) and Produce (Activate). Similar to the Task-based approach, the ESA components can be rearranged to maximize awareness-raising, by first getting students to do an activity to Activate the skill that they lack; once this is realized, the students are more likely to see the importance of the skill, especially if the activity is seen as important to the learners.
Can educational videos learn anything from these awareness raising methods?
This is a good question.
To date I have not seen any educational videos or courses that leverage pedagogical awareness raising. (Of course, perhaps there are and I haven’t seen them.) Many Youtuber-influenced educational videos will certainly catch the attention of the viewers in the opening seconds and perhaps even try to impress upon the viewer the importance of the subject matter. But this is a marketing awareness move based on FOMO (fear of missing out). This is not a pedagogical one that tries to implant the seeds of learning into the memory.
So, how can educational video designers use cognitive science of learning to engineer awareness raising for learning?
Perhaps for intelligent, articulate and naturally charismatic teachers who know their stuff, this may be less important. Sal Khan is the one on one tutor that everybody would love to have. But Sal’s videos emerge from the high-tech ecosystem of the Khan Academy – a very sophisticated learning management system designed to hook learners. It does this by leveraging not only the principles of learning mastery but also the addicting principles of gamification to motivate learners to watch more and do more practice: the more practice you do, the more points you get, the more your cute avatar will change and grow.
So a valid question is this: Without the scaffolding of a high-tech learning management system to hook learners, how can creators of educational videos design their videos with principles of learning theory?
Here is what it might look like … with insights from the science of learning.
The challenges from a science of learning perspective
The science of learning investigates the memory problem of learning: how can the learner be directed to attend to new knowledge in the working memory and be guided to take that knowledge from short-term to long-term memory.
The educator needs to plan for the three key stages — and challenges — in learning:
- how to raise awareness/attention and offer clear explanation for working memory
- how to provide opportunities relate new knowledge to old and practice to encode learning in short-term memory
- and how to retrieve knowledge over time with spaced practice and testing to consolidate learning in long-term memory.
Suggestions to enhance the learning potential of educational videos and online courses
In the following, I have outlined some suggestions and examples to implement principles from the science of learning to online course design. It is safe to assume that earners who enroll for online courses, especially paid ones, are willing to put in work and practice time to improve their knowledge and related skills. This is especially true if the course price point is substantial.
Overcoming challenge 1: Raising awareness – Hooking the learner early
The first challenge has to do with raising awareness and securing the attention of the learner. Youtubers are masters at this and designers of educational videos should pay close attention to their strategies of 1. grabbing the attention of the learners, 2. convincing them that something of value will follow, and 3. describing clearly what it is and why it is valuable. One way to demonstrate value of the content may be to take a page from the Task-based learning playbook – and show the viewer that they do not know something. I call this the task-to-fail approach where the learner is immediately given a task that they cannot successfully complete because they do not have the knowledge or skills to do it yet. An example of this for a job application cover letter writing style would be:
Example 1. Task-to-fail example to show learners their lack of knowledge
| … I also have the following qualifications: Supervised a digital marketing team of 6Enthusiastic and open minded Google Analytics Individual Qualification Certificate | Task: Do you know what’s wrong with this description for a job application cover letter? If not, watch the rest of the video. |
It is likely that the targeted learner does not know that for grammatical consistency, all of the bullets should be nouns or noun phrases, since the bullets are examples of “qualifications”, which is a noun. So, the v-ed form “supervised …” and Adj “enthusiastic …” do not meet the grammatical rule for consistent use of nouns. This lesson can be generally applied to all situations where bullets are used as a list.
Overcoming challenge 2: Encoding – Connecting new knowledge to old
The second challenge of encoding and getting the learner to connect the new knowledge with old is more difficult. This is because most educational videos are one-way and do not involve open exchanges, unless real life coaching is an add-on to the video course. But, depending on the length of the video or online course, a review-then-add strategy can be used. That is, more basic knowledge that is already known can be presented as reminder cues, which can be referred to and built upon for the new knowledge. An example of this for the above cover letter lesson may be to lead learners to identify job applicant qualifications and their grammatical forms:
Example 2. Connecting new knowledge/awareness with previous knowledge
Match the following qualification examples with their types:
| Qualification example | Qualification Type | |
Open minded (adj) Increased website traffic by 334% (V-ed) Able to perform website SEO (able to + v) Dynamic and professional presenter (adj + noun) Google Analytics and SEO certifications (adj + noun) | Personality Experiences Skills/Abilities |
This exercise is to raise grammar awareness of the different grammars used to describe different qualifications. More mature learners can draw on their prior knowledge to complete this easy matching activity to raise grammar awareness. Example 2 thus serves as a review in the review-then-add strategy before adding the new knowledge which is previewed in Example 1.
Overcoming challenge 3a: Consolidating – Producing and getting feedback
A crucial part of skill learning is getting feedback on created work. It is one thing to watch instructional swimming videos and then practice yourself. But it is much more effective if the instruction and practice is coupled with personal feedback from an expert. Many online course developers recognize this and thus offer premium (priced) courses that provide not only the 2Ps of Present (instruction and demonstration) and Practice, but also Produce where the learners take the knowledge and skills and produce their own work, like a CV and cover letter, and then get personalized feedback and coaching to improve the work.
Example 3a: Coaching and giving feedback on a revised CV
Overcoming challenge 3b: Consolidating – Spaced learning and testing
The third challenge is pivotal, because this is where the declarative knowledge (knowledge about) becomes procedural knowledge (know-how). The course designer needs to put effort into designing tests that force the learners to review the material and make a conscious effort to remember it. And more than that, delayed reminders and emails or notifications can be sent to the learner for spaced repetition of learning. These will increase the chances of learning mastery and the knowledge entering long-term memory.
Example 3b. Test or delayed practice by email/sms notification
| In the following list of qualifications which one(s) are NOT grammatical examples of qualifications Experience designing websites with HTML and WordPress Proficiency in French and Mandarin Received MBA from Thunderbird School of Global ManagementPublished several articles in SSCI journals Able to use advanced Excel functions like Pivot Tables & Pivot Reporting |
In this example, answers d. and e. are not noun phrases and therefore not grammatical examples of “qualifications”. This could be an example of a test question for a test that, if passed, gets the learner a certificate; or this could be the type of question sent to the learner 2 weeks after course completion, and then 5 weeks, and then 8 weeks to help consolidate the learning of key points or skills and help turn this knowledge into procedural knowledge in the long-term memory.
With these suggestions to overcome the challenges of distance and online learning, course designers can optimize learning potential and maximize the possibility of pushing knowledge and skills into long-term memory.
