Abstract
Whether to embrace “flipped” pedagogy or to problem solve during a pandemic, many teachers utilize video to deliver instruction to students. Watching a video can be a passive activity without a person or a tool to facilitate active engagement. As a result, many teachers find the need to look for tools, methods, and platforms to engage learners, add elements of interactivity, and incorporate effective instructional practices into their video lessons. In this manuscript, we describe how a specific technology, Edpuzzle, can help facilitate video lessons that include explicit instruction elements such as eliciting frequent responses, offering supported practice, providing immediate affirmative and corrective feedback, and monitoring student performance. When paired with well-designed videos, teachers can use this tool to deliver effective instruction in an asynchronous environment.
In an educational landscape transformed by distance learning, teachers increasingly rely on recorded videos to deliver asynchronous instruction for remote learning, flipped learning, or supplementing traditional face-to-face instruction. One inherent challenge of using videos as a teaching tool is the passive nature of most videos. Given the importance of interactivity to the learning process (Appleton et al., 2008; Klem & Connell, 2009), educators seek tools that allow them to provide students with opportunities to respond within and during the lesson itself. Although teachers can use many online tools to engage students, they must ensure they do so without disregarding effective instructional practices. Explicit instruction, a direct approach to teaching that is highly effective for teaching functional and academic skills to students with disabilities (Archer & Hughes, 2011), is one such practice. Edpuzzle is a web-based program designed to create interactive videos or video lessons. The features available in the Edpuzzle platform allow teachers to easily incorporate the tenets of explicit instruction, along with other effective instructional practices such as High Leverage Practices (McClesky et al., 2017) into their video lessons. It is important to note this paper describes Edpuzzle as it currently exists; the authors assume Edpuzzle, like all technology, will continue to evolve over time and thus frame this analysis using what we know about the conditions that foster learning, as derived from decades of research on explicit and effective teaching.
The Edpuzzle Interface
The Edpuzzle interface has three primary tabs: Content, Gradebook, and My Classes designed for video creation and editing, reviewing student submissions and providing feedback. Edpuzzle also has built-in accountability features that allow teachers to see how students engage with video content. For each video, teachers can monitor how much of the video a student has watched and whether they repeatedly watched specific parts, indicating that a student may need additional support. Teachers can lock fast-forward (or skipping), to ensure students first watch the video in real-time without the ability to skip ahead. These features help teachers determine if their students have watched a video in full rather than just skipping ahead to the questions. A complete list of Edpuzzle’s features, along with a table with video examples, can be found on our companion website (see Figure 1).
Companion website QR code. Link to companion site: https://tinyurl.com/DDC-TK-AH.
How to Use Edpuzzle to Enact Explicit Instruction
Explicit instruction (EI) is an instructional method supported by over 50 years of empirical research across content areas, grade levels, and ability levels (Riccomini et al., 2017; Therrien et al., 2017). In its simplest form, the explicit instruction lesson structure includes modeling (“I do”), guided practice (“we do”), and independent practice (“you do”). Whether choosing existing videos or creating their own, teachers should adhere to this gradual release structure whereby teachers strategically fade supports as students gradually gain proficiency with new skills or content. By incorporating EI’s critical features as they create instructional videos, educators can ensure their video-based instruction is maximally effective in teaching learners new skills and concepts.
Archer and Hughes (2011) describe 16 instructional elements emblematic of an explicit teaching approach, which are consistent with findings from an array of foundational research on effective instruction (e.g., Brophy, 1986; Hughes et al., 2017; Rosenshine, 1997), and which describe the teaching behaviors of educators using explicit instruction methods. Collectively, these approaches promote core principles of EI: optimize engaged time on task, promote high levels of success, increase content coverage, maximize time in instructional groups, scaffold instruction, and address different forms of knowledge (Archer & Hughes, 2011). Teachers can use Edpuzzle to enact many of these elements; most notably, to (a) provide students with step-by-step demonstrations of new skills, (b) require frequent student responses, and (c) provide immediate affirmative and corrective feedback.
When teachers create clear descriptions and demonstrations of new skills via video, students can also access them multiple times—a useful feature not possible with face-to-face instruction. In this way, Edpuzzle promotes a flipped learning model, allowing students, co-teachers, specialists, parents, and other stakeholders to review an expert model and freeing up valuable class time for students to apply new skills. Edpuzzle can help teachers create frequent and varied opportunities for students to respond during a video, transforming passive asynchronous video lessons into an interactive experience whereby students respond to teacher-generated questions and receive specific and timely feedback as they progress through a video. Given such alignment, Edpuzzle can be seen as enabling a practical and explicit approach to teaching. In the section that follows, we describe how teachers can apply these instructional elements using Edpuzzle features during the modeling, guided practice, and independent practice portions of their lessons. Readers are also invited to watch the author-created preview version of a sample Edpuzzle Explicit Instruction video lesson (see Figure 2) to gain a sense of how EI can be implemented as it is described in the following sections.
Example explicit instruction video lesson using Edpuzzle. Link to Live video: https://tinyurl.com/DDC-TK-AH-F2.
Modeling
The ability to provide learners with step-by-step demonstrations of new skills and concepts in a form that remains accessible to students beyond any single point in time has immense potential. Video-based models are incredibly powerful because they offer learners the possibility of repeated exposures to how an expert approaches and executes a task. Effective models optimally use clear and concise language and include “think-alouds” to help make expert thinking accessible to novice learners (Archer & Hughes, 2011). In addition to demonstrating and describing how to perform a new skill, teachers should also use think-alouds as an opportunity to guide students’ conceptual thinking. In the sample Edpuzzle video, and highlighted in text within Figure 2, notice that throughout the modeling phase, the teacher proceeds through a logical sequence of steps that remains focused on the instructional goal, thus optimizing instructional time. Extraneous and irrelevant digressions are avoided, while key terms and concepts are conveyed in multiple modalities (e.g., verbal descriptions, visual representations, metacognitive supports). For example, in the Figure 2 modeling section, the teacher incorporates a combination of graphical representation, numerical expressions, and different colors to emphasize the key concept of altering both numbers the same amount. This emphasis is further conveyed by the teacher’s clear diction and tonal emphasis on the word same. This key idea, transmitted through multiple modalities, represents the teacher’s effective use of the array of tools at her disposal.
Guided Practice
Teachers play an essential role in helping students practice and gain independence in the skill they are learning by providing substantial support initially and then gradually withdrawing this scaffolding as learners become more proficient. During guided practice, students benefit from ample opportunities to respond (OTR) as they practice new skills (Brophy, 1986; Greenwood et al., 1994); offering timely and specific feedback fosters students’ success (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Clearly, traditional (i.e., passive) video-based instruction limits teachers’ ability to elicit responses from their students and to provide them with feedback. Edpuzzle enables teachers to integrate precisely these kinds of interactive opportunities for practice through questioning features and feedback options.
The questions feature is one way by which teachers can guide student thinking, promote active engagement, and gauge students’ understanding. The multiple-choice questions allow teachers to probe comprehension and generate automatic immediate affirmative or corrective feedback after the student submits a response to an embedded question. Open-ended questions allow for elaborated written responses and offer students the ability to make personal connections with content as they construct new understandings. As illustrated in Figure 2, and in our sample Edpuzzle Explicit Instruction video lesson, teachers can include visual scaffolds on the screen when an embedded question appears within a video. In this video example, notice the teacher’s incorporation of frequent response opportunities within the practice problems, also denoted in the right-hand column of Figure 2 by the words “[pause for response].” Students are actively engaged in Edpuzzle videos when teachers embed the kinds of questions they would typically ask in synchronous or in-person instruction to facilitate student learning. Another critical approach of explicit instruction involves teachers prompting student skill use to support mastery. Such prompts and reminders can be offered in embedded audio or written notes, which pauses the video, directing students to practice a skill on a worksheet or hyperlinked activity. The notes feature also renders Edpuzzle videos more dynamic by extending the formats teachers can use to convey information. For example, a note designed to guide student thinking could be inserted into a video prior to their viewing an important section.
The amount of guided practice teachers choose to integrate into their video-based lessons will vary according to the additional time, if any, teachers are able to devote to supporting learners in subsequent in-person or synchronous remote classes. Teachers may find a combination of asynchronous and synchronous/in-person approach is most advantageous. For example, some portion of the guided practice can occur while students watch the video and additional guided practice opportunities may take place after watching the video during in-person or synchronous remote class sessions. As is the case with any educational technology tool, these decisions are best made by experts (i.e., teachers) applying their knowledge of their students, educational goals, available resources, and the host of additional variables factored into the countless instructional choices teachers make each day.
Independent Practice
This stage of an EI lesson is characterized by opportunities for students to practice skills independently. Although video-based instruction is often shorter than in-person or synchronous lessons, students may not become completely independent in their practice by the end of a video. Teachers who wish to include an independent practice section in their video-based lessons can provide instructions for independent practice, and fade supports such as visual cues and notes as the video lesson progresses beyond guided practice. In our sample Edpuzzle Explicit Instruction video lesson, as in Figure 2, notice the teacher’s incorporation of multiple supports as students transition to independent practice. Students are still provided access to the list of steps to follow, are encouraged to write down their steps, and are offered reminders for strategy use. Students are also held accountable by needing to enter their responses before accessing the correct answer for self-check. By maintaining a focus on how to gradually transfer responsibility for new concepts and skills to learners, teachers can prepare students for proficiency and independence when the conditions are optimal. One important caveat, however, is that since the teacher is not present while the student is practicing in such a scenario, it is possible that some students could begin independent practice before they are fully ready to do so. In typical classrooms teachers are able to monitor student performance, and provide just-in-time supports learners may need to transition to independent practice. We therefore recommend keeping these kinds of supports available throughout the video and reserve proper independent practice for a time where the teacher can continue to monitor students’ application of newly acquired skills. This will ensure students are able to engage in errorless learning and thus avoid practicing incorrectly. The tools available to the Edpuzzle user can therefore be viewed as the essential pedagogical means by which to provide scaffolded learning opportunities to students, and maximize their success in asynchronous settings.
Developing Video Lessons With Edpuzzle
The process of creating a video lesson is relatively simple; users find (or upload) a video, add questions or interactive elements, and assign it to a class for students to view. This process leaves teachers with two crucial starting points to consider when generating videos: (a) create your own video, or (b) use existing video. Regardless of which method is selected, teachers should keep Mayer’s (2017) 12 research-based principles for designing computer-based multimedia instructional materials to promote academic learning and the 16 elements of explicit instruction in mind when creating or selecting existing videos. Mayer’s (2009) 12 principles showcase how to effectively structure and organize multimedia learning experiences to maximize learning. There are two videos housed on the companion website that review these principles in depth. Not all videos are equally useful in conveying content to students and video construction quality is essential in providing students with the most effective video lessons possible.
Creating Your Own Edpuzzle Videos
Creating your own videos is one way to ensure videos are of high quality and align with key elements of explicit instruction and multimedia design principles. One advantage to this option is that students hear their own teacher’s voice and/or image in the video, conveying a relevance and authenticity that is hard to replicate when using others’ videos. Teachers recording their own instructional videos can also use language that is familiar and appropriate for their students’ developmental level, and can situate a lesson within the larger context of a unit of study, for example.
An excellent place to begin when designing a video is by using a storyboard and developing a script. A storyboard is a graphic organizer consisting of illustrations, images, or sometimes text displayed in a sequence to assist in visualizing a movie or video. Storyboarding makes it easy to plan out your video’s “flow” and keep a clear structure. You can ensure proper organization and inclusion of all necessary elements (i.e. modeling, guided practice, examples, non-examples, pre-teaching of vocabulary). It will also help you sequence skills logically, plan out the frequency of responses, and identify areas where immediate feedback needs to be provided. Since graphics and images should appear in time with narration (Mayer, 2009), the use of a storyboard and script can cut back on video production time. For the purposes of creating educational video content, particularly content for Edpuzzle, it can be useful to use presentation software (i.e. Apple Keynote, Microsoft PowerPoint) as a storyboarding tool. Using presentation software, educators can write the script in the presenter’s notes and use the built-in animation features to aid in content appearing/disappearing in sync with the narration. Further, this type of software allows users export their presentations in video format, making the video creation process manageable for novice video creators. An example storyboard can be found on the companion website.
Based on lesson content, it can be easy to get carried away and create incredibly lengthy videos. Explicit Instruction video lessons should be broken down into small, self-paced chunks with complex skills and strategies appearing in a related series of videos as opposed to one long video. Research suggests videos used for instructional purposes under 15 minutes in length are most effective than longer videos (Berg et. al., 2014), and an optimal time may in fact be under 6 minutes (Guo et al., 2014). If the audience for an EI video is for younger students or depicts a difficult concept, teachers may want to keep the length under 6 minutes.
After the planning process, design decisions influence the learning experience; it is important that concepts are conveyed clearly and concisely, eliminating non-essential extraneous material while highlighting that which is crucial (Archer & Hughes, 2011; Mayer, 2009). Design elements, such as color, highlighting, or arrows, are effective in drawing attention to essential content and maintaining engagement. Color schemes should be simple and cohesive; text should be easy to read. Care must be given to how on-screen text appears, with printed words adjacent to related concepts or graphics, rather than on a different section of the screen. When it comes time to record a video lesson, narration tone and fluency should be conversational and engaging in an attempt to captivate and engage the audience through voice (Mayer, 2009). Using a script makes it easier to achieve greater expression and fluency than to narrate on the fly. As an added benefit, it is simple to create closed captions to make the video more accessible, removing the added step of transcribing narration.
Many resources exist to guide teachers in designing videos that help convey content in clear, organized, and efficient ways (e.g., Mayer, 2009; Kennedy et al., 2015). Resources related to designing high-quality multimedia are embedded on the author created companion website (Figure 1). Investing time in quality video creation is recouped when videos are deployed across time and settings.
Use/Adapt Existing Video for Edpuzzle
Using existing videos is another option that can save teachers time and prevent the need to “remake the wheel” when high-quality videos on desired subjects are already available from web-based sources such as Kahn Academy, TedTalks, or YouTube. Additionally, Edpuzzle also contains various pre-made videos in their “curriculum” section of their website. To make the best use of existing video, teachers should keep in mind the characteristics of effective instruction to select videos best aligned with what we know about good teaching, as previously described. Still, teachers opting to use existing videos can add important background information, directions, questions, and feedback by using the suite of Edpuzzle tools designed to promote interactivity and enhance the quality of existing videos.
Additional Features and Functionality
In addition to the ability to create interactive instructional videos for independent and asynchronous viewing, Edpuzzle has additional functionality that makes it compatible with a variety of teaching scenarios and technology infrastructures. Edpuzzle also has a live mode to use during synchronous instruction. The teacher can play a video for all students to see simultaneously on one screen, and students can respond to embedded prompts on their individual devices for active engagement and checks for understanding. This could be a useful method for providing quality explicit instruction created by one teacher but facilitated by another teacher like a teaching assistant or substitute. When a district has a pro school account, this kind of collaboration and sharing among teachers is simple, as teachers can search for video lessons from other teachers in their network and copy it to their own account to assign to their students. Particularly at the elementary level, teachers could share the time-consuming responsibility of content creation for multiple subject areas.
Another beneficial feature of Edpuzzle is its ability to integrate with other popular technologies for learning. Though the Edpuzzle platform has a grade book to track student progress on videos, it is not designed to be a complete Learning Management System (LMS). Like with most supplemental technologies for teaching, we recommend you utilize your district’s LMS as a central hub for linking to all supplementary technologies. Edpuzzle has the ability to integrate video lessons with several popular LMSs, including Canvas, Schoology, Blackboard, and Moodle. On these platforms, you can assign videos from within the LMS, and the grades from Edpuzzle can automatically update in the LMS grade book. For schools that use Google Classroom, Edpuzzle can access both the roster and the grade book functions of this LMS. Full integration is not currently available with other platforms like PowerSchool and Sakai; however, because Edpuzzle allows the teacher to copy/paste a hyperlink or an embed code to a video lesson, it integrates to some degree with most Learning Management Systems.
A final feature to highlight is the ability to include closed captioning/subtitles for videos. Closed captioning, which is the ability to turn on and off the visual text of the audio narration, is essential for learners who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) to access video content. Edpuzzle gives the option to display published captions on video from external sites such as YouTube, Khan Academy, and National Geographic. Like most accessibility features, from a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lens, closed captioning may also be useful for vocabulary acquisition for English Language Learners (ELL) or students with Learning Disabilities (LD) as they can hear and see content vocabulary at the same time. Closed captioning may also be helpful for students who may be in a noisy or distracting environment while viewing the videos.
Limitations and Potential Solutions
The interactive nature of Edpuzzle allows for active engagement while consuming multimedia, but it is not without its limitations. In Table 1 below, we detail some of these limitations as well as some potential solutions you might consider to address those limitations.
Edpuzzle Potential Solutions & Considerations to Limitations.
Conclusion
As with any technology, videos delivered through Edpuzzle will be effective instructional tools only to the extent a teacher incorporates effective approaches to lesson design and delivery, many of which have been described in the previous sections. Enacting effective pedagogy must remain at the heart of technology-infused instruction. Video-based lessons that do not incorporate effective design principles, or do not enact key EI features described above, are likely to be less effective. To maximize Edpuzzle’s usefulness, educators who leverage its various components to promote active engagement (i.e., requiring frequent responses, providing feedback, monitoring performance) are best positioned to design engaging and effective video-based instruction, consistent with EI design principles.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
