Five Minutes of Fame

 

    Can filming a five minute lesson change the learning dynamic of your classroom? I'm starting to think it can. A content packed five minute instructional video can take you out of the front of your classroom and put you in the rows. This opportunity allows you the opportunity to engage more with your students and learn more about them. Connections are one of the biggest and most important parts of being a teacher. If we can find one more way to spend two more minutes connecting with our kids I think we all would do it. 

    Another major plus about this is the students ability to play, replay, slowdown, speed-up, pause, read closed captions, listen, and. Visually, the lesson is incredible. Students can now watch a lesson as many times as they need to understand it. Plus, they don't need to feel judged for watching it one or six times. I personally love short instructional videos. They allow me to be engaged and not feel like I am wasting my time. Being able to slow down the information is also an amazing feature. This gives students even more of an opportunity to work at their own pace. 

    The last thought I had about teaching with five minute instructional videos is the capability to do series. I see huge functionality of putting sequential videos into a classroom google drive. These series will help students be able to refer back to previous videos if they need to touch up on the content. The best part, all of the videos are no more than five minutes long so the touch up is quick. I would love to film a series of music theory videos going through all of the scales and modalities of scales if I ever teach music theory. I genuinely think this could help my students conquer one of the scariest parts of music, SCALE TESTS...