In-video quizzing tools help students engage with content
Although Abdelfattah Nour has more than 20 years of experience teaching online courses, he admits he has never been a big fan of lecture videos.
“Watching a screen is too passive,” says Nour, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine. “You need to have some sort of interaction with the material – you have to be able to engage.”
Now, new in-video quizzing options – available to Purdue instructors as an option in the Kaltura video platform and by using the educational tool PlayPosit – are changing Nour’s thoughts.
“When I first saw the option in Kaltura, I thought this is what I’ve been looking for,” says Nour.
In-video quizzing, as the name implies, allows instructors to add interactive questions within online videos. For Nour, that means videos that pause after he has discussed key concepts and prompt students to answer a question before continuing.
“By asking questions as they move along, it reinforces what they are supposed to be learning, and it encourages them to pay closer attention,” says Nour.
Faculty and staff interested in learning more about in-video quizzing options can attend the next Tech Today event on September 7. ITaP’s Teaching and Learning Technologies also provides one-on-one consultations to demonstrate how the tools work; to learn more contact tlt@purdue.edu.
With Kaltura, instructors can add multiple-choice questions to new or existing videos. PlayPosit allows for a variety of question types, including open-ended, as well as the embedding of links and other materials within videos; the tool can also serve as an in-class engagement tool by providing instructors a way to use video response in the classroom. Both tools can be used within Blackboard and can sync with Blackboard’s gradebook.
Physics Professor Andy Hirsch says he became interested to use PlayPosit in-video quizzing after noticing that students in his flipped-classroom section of Physics 172 watched fewer and fewer instructional videos as the semester progressed.
“So adding a probing question at the end of each video, in part, is a way to make sure students are watching the material,” says Hirsch. “But the bigger goal is trying to devise ways that get them to engage with the material in a meaningful way.”
Hirsch says he has been teaching his course long enough to know the areas where students traditionally struggle, so he tries to add questions to reinforce the concepts in those areas.
“They can always go back and rewatch the video before answering, so it helps them go back, concentrate, and engage with the material in a way students weren’t doing before,” Hirsch says.
Faculty and instructors interested in using in-video quizzing with their course, or about other available classroom technology, can contact tlt@purdue.edu to request more information or a one-on-one consultation.
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Did you know?
ITaP’s Teaching and Learning Technologies supports and enhances teaching and learning at Purdue by offering:
- One-on-one consultation with educational technologists, who can help you choose the appropriate solution for your teaching and learning needs.
- Faculty Professional Development, hands-on opportunities designed to help instructors learn best practices for using specific technology.
- Course design, with the help of our team of instructional designers, who work with colleges and faculty to develop, redesign and review courses.
Contact tlt@purdue.edu to get started or to learn more.
Writer: Dave Stephens, technology writer, Information Technology at Purdue, 765-496-7998, steph103@purdue.edu
Last updated: August 28, 2018