Introduce and frame your video content

Here are five different sorts of cues you can use to frame the video students are about to watch. Keep in mind these should be brief – you don’t want to replicate the entire content of the video itself!

Set expectations

Help students understand what they are about to watch, and reduce the cognitive load, by giving a brief preview or overview of the video. This will also help students later if they need to return to a topic for revision. For example:

• “In this video we look at…”
• “Here we explore the concept of…”
• “We now examine…”
• “This is an introduction to…”

Establish the context

Briefly explain why you are asking students to watch this video. You could mention how it relates to the week’s topic, project milestone, etc. Explaining the context can motivate time-poor students to engage when they otherwise might not. Some ways to set context might be:

• “This builds on…” 
• “This topic arose in response to…”
• “Earlier we learned… now…”
• “This idea follows on from…”

Foreshadow

As with the previous contextualisation, situate this video in relation to what will come after to encourage consideration of the bigger picture. For example:

• “This idea will influence…”
• “Building on this concept, we’ll later look at…”
• “Following on from this idea…”
• “This will lead to…”

Justify

Why do students need to understand this? What is its impact? Provide some additional motivation:

• “It’s important to understand this because…”
• “This is relevant because…”
• “We study this because…”
• “We’re looking at this because…”

Activate

You want students to pay close attention to your material, rather than half-listen as they juggle other distractions. Build the association between watching the video and active engagement with the material:

• “As you watch, consider…”
• “Think about how…”
• “Why do you think…?”
• “Take particular note of…”
• “After learning this, you should be able to…”
• “At the end of the video you will be asked to…”
• “After watching the video you’ll apply…”