2022 – Page 7 – Education & Teacher Conferences

Let’s Get Practical: How Fast Should Videos Be?

Andrew Watson

January 13, 2022

Let’s Get Practical: How Fast Should Videos Be?

Research often operates at a highly abstract level.

Psychologists and neuroscientists study cognitive “tasks” that stand in for school work. If we’re being honest, however, we often struggle to see the connection between the research task and actual classroom learning.

HOWEVER…

Every now and then, a study comes along that asks a very practical question, and offers some very practical answers.

Even better: it explores the limits of its own answers.

I’ve recently found a study looking at this (incredibly practical) question:

Because students can easily play videos at different speeds, we need to know: which video speed benefits learning the most?

So: what advice should we give our students about learning from videos?

Exploring The Question

Let’s start with a specific example:

If a student watches a video at double speed, she (obviously) spends only half as much time mentally interacting with its information.

Does that reduction in time lead to an equal reduction in learning? Will she learn half as much as if she had watched it at regular speed?

Dr. Dillon Murphy starts with that question, and then quickly gets interested in crucial related questions:

What about other video speeds? That is: what about watching the video at 1.5x speed? What about 3x speed?

Does the topic of the video matter?

And, here’s a biggie: what should students do with the time they save?

Even before we look at the results of this study, I think we can admire its design.

Murphy’s team ran multiple versions of this study looking at all these different variables (and several others).

They did not, in other words, test one hypothesis and then — based on that one test — tell teachers what to do. (“Best practices require…”)

Instead, they invited us into a complex set of questions and possibilities.

Maybe 1.5x is the most efficient speed for learning.

Maybe 3x is the best speed if students use the time they saved to rewatch the video.

Maybe regular speed is best after all.

Because Murphy’s team explores so many possibilities with such open-minded curiosity, we have a MUCH better chance of figuring out which results apply to us. *

The Envelope Please

Rather than walk you through each of the studies, I’ll start with the study’s overall conclusions.

First: watching videos at higher speeds does reduce learning, but not as much as you might think.

That is: spending half as much time with the video (because a student watched it at double speed) does NOT result in half as much learning.

To be specific: students watched ~ 14 minute videos (about real-estate appraisals, or about Roman history).

A week later, those who watched them at regular speed scored a 59% on a quiz. Those who watched at 2x speed scored a 53%.

59% is higher that 53%, but it’s not twice as high. **

Second: students can use that “saved” time productively.

What should a student do with the 7 minutes she saved? She’s got two helpful choices.

Choice 1: rewatch the video right away.

Students who used their “saved” time to rewatch the video right away recaptured those “lost” points. That is: they had the same score as students who watched the video once at regular speed.

Choice 2: bank the time and rewatch the video later.

In another version of the study, students who watched the 1x video once scored a 55% on a quiz one week later.

Other students watched the 2x video once, and then once again a week later. They scored a 63% on that quiz. (For stats types, the d value is 0.55 — a number that gets my attention.)

In other words: rewatching at double speed a week later leads to MORE LEARNING in the THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME (14 minutes).

Practical + Practical

Murphy takes great care to look at specific combinations.

His example encourages us to take care as well. For instance:

His team worked with college students. Will this result hold for 8th graders, or 2nd graders?

You can look to you your teacherly experience and judgment to answer that question.

Will this effect hold for longer videos: 30 minutes, or one hour?

We don’t know yet.

These videos included a talking head and slides with words — but not closed captions. Will some other combination (no talking head? closed captions on?) lead to different results?

We don’t know yet.

In other words: Murphy’s study gives us practical guidance. We should use our judgment and experience to apply it to our specific teaching circumstances.

* I should note: This study is unusually easy to read. If the topic interests you, you might look it over yourself.

** Important note: I’ve seen news reports about this study saying that watching once at double speed results in the same amount of learning as watching once at regular speed. That claim is untrue. And: Murphy’s study does not make that claim.

Murphy, D. H., Hoover, K. M., Agadzhanyan, K., Kuehn, J. C., & Castel, A. D. (2021). Learning in double time: The effect of lecture video speed on immediate and delayed comprehension. Applied Cognitive Psychology.

The Benefits of Direct Instruction: Balancing Theory with Practice

Andrew Watson

January 02, 2022

The Benefits of Direct Instruction: Balancing Theory with Practice

When teachers hear that “research shows we should do X,” we have at least two broad questions:

First Question: what’s the research?

Second Question: what EXACTLY does X look like in the classroom?

People who have the expertise to answer the first question (researchers) might not have the K-12 classroom experience to answer the second question.

And, of course, people who can make it work in the classroom (teachers) might not know or understand the research.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could find one book that answers both sets of questions?

In fact, it would be especially great if that book focused on a controversial topic. In that case, we could see a complete argument – both the why and the how – before we make a judgment about the controversy.

Does that sound tempting? I have good news…

Embracing Controversy

A feisty battle has raged in edu-circles for many years now: “direct instruction” vs. “constructivist pedagogy.” *

In one corner, “constructivists” argue that problems or projects or independent inquiries help students discover and build enduring understanding. And, such exploration fosters authentic motivation as well.

In the other corner, “direct instruction” advocates argue that working memory limitations sharply constrain students’ cognitive workspace. For that reason, teachers must explicitly shape learning experiences with small steps and carefully-designed practice.

Both approaches can be – and frequently are – parodied, misunderstood, and badly practiced. So, a book explaining the WHY (research) and the HOW (classroom practice) would be greatly helpful.

Sage on the Page

Adam Boxer teaches chemistry at a school in London, and has been blogging about his work for some time now. (If you follow our twitter account, @LearningandtheB, you’ve seen links to his work before.)

In his book Explicit & Direct Instruction: An Evidence-Informed Guide for Teachers, Boxer gathers eleven essays that explain the research background and then then get SUPER specific with classroom suggestions.

In the first chapter, Kris Boulton tells the history of “Project Follow Through,” a multi-decade program to discover the best way of teaching children.

Researchers tracked more than 200,000 children in 13 different programs over several years, and compared their learning across three dimensions: basic skills, cognitive skills, and affective skills.

Which approach proved most effective?

Direct Instruction, created by Siegfried Engelmann.** It was, in fact, the only program of the 13 that benefitted students in all three dimensions.

When advocates of Direct Instruction (and direct instruction) insist that research shows its effectiveness, they reasonably enough point to Project Follow Through. (Can others critique this study? Of course…)

Both Boulton and Greg Ashman (in the second chapter) then emphasize the alignment of direct instruction with psychology models: cognitive load theory, schema theory, and so forth.

In brief: we’ve got LOTS of research explaining why direct instruction should work, and showing that it does work.

Let’s Get Practical

After Boulton and Ashman explain the why, the next several chapters deliver on the classroom how.

For me, the book’s great success lies in the number, variety, and specificity of these chapters.

What does direct instruction look like for teaching math?

How about science?

How about writing?

What’s the best number of examples to use?

And so forth.

I especially enjoyed Sarah Cullen’s chapter on fading. Cullen begins with an important question/critique:

How, then, can a teaching method that so depends on instruction – on teachers leading learning and controlling the content to which pupils are exposed – foster autonomy?

Her answer focuses on having scaffolds and removing scaffolds – aka, “fading.”

In particular, Cullen wisely conceptualizes fading over many different time spans: fading across grades (which requires planning across years), fading within a term’s curriculum (requiring planning across months), and fading within a lesson (requiring skill, insight, and practice).

Like the book’s other chapters, Cullen’s offers many specific examples for each of her categories. In other words, she ground theoretical understanding with highly specific classroom realities.

In Brief

If you already think direct instruction sounds right, you’ll be glad to have a how-to guide.

If you think it sounds suspect (or even oppressive), you’ll be glad to read a straightforward explanation of the research behind the approach. (You might not be persuaded, but you’ll understand both sides of the argument more clearly.)

And, if you want realistic classroom examples explained with loving detail, this book will launch 2022 just right.

* I’ve put those labels in quotation marks because both are familiar, but neither one really works.

** Direct Instruction (with capital letters) is the name of Engelmann’s specific program. On the other hand, direct instruction (without capital letters) is a broader approach to thinking about teaching and learning.

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