A comprehensive study on the usefulness of teaching through recorded videos

Abstract

Education, today, has become one of the basic necessities of life along with food, clothes

and shelter. In India the importance given to education is only rising with time. Though India has been home to numerous learning centres since ages, there are questions raised about the quality of education being provided in schools today. Truly educating a person involves employing various tools to make the process of learning engaging, thought provoking and closer to practicality. The advancements in technology have transformed the way in which education is offered to the students. Blackboards gave way to smart boards, textbooks to e readers and copybooks to word documents or presentations. There is a general perception among students, parents and school administration alike that anything to do with technology is superior and produces better results. Videos are one such technical tool widely promoted in schools in today and like any other technology has both pros and cons.

This project aims to find the usefulness and effectiveness of videos in the process of learning. If videos generate results on par with traditional teaching methods, they can be used to address the huge faculty crunch that India faces today especially in rural areas. The research began with studying various papers to understand the nuances of learning process. This was followed by visits to various schools to get first had experience of the different styles of teaching practiced, the technical aids being used and the advantages or challenges faced while using them. Different types of videos were shown to multiple teachers as well as students and their opinion sought through in-depth interviews at the end. It was observed that foreign accent was uncomfortable to students and they were more interested in smart boards. It was also found that the students lost their concentration after a while in the absence of a teacher while graphical videos did seem to address this problem. Criticism against videos was that the human aspect of teaching is lost and over time it kills the creativity of both teachers and students. The popular opinion is that videos cannot be used in a standalone fashion but instead as a supplement during teaching.

Two videos were finally chosen: one with graphics and without the visibility of the teacher and other which replicates the traditional class room environment. The key parameters to be probed are levels of understanding, interest and retention levels. A section of ninth class students was divided into three groups with two learning the videos and the third one was exposed to traditional teaching. It was found that the engagement level is high for video

with graphical content and the presence of teacher in the videos does not create additional value. A written test was conducted at the end of sessions to check for understanding and the average scores across the three experimental set ups varied marginally only. Majority opined that videos rich in graphics should be simultaneously used in class for better visualisation and retention. Whereas in situations where teachers are absolutely not available in certain rural schools, usage of graphical videos will solve the resource crunch problem as can be observed by the decent performance of students in the test conducted.

It must also be noted that videos can never completely replace teachers as the one on one

connect cannot be established through videos and stimulating thinking process by way of questioning is not possible. Also, education is not all about understanding and building on concepts, it is about the overall development and transformation of a person into a great social being. It is also important for the teachers to keep themselves updated with the latest happenings and be trained adequately to enhance the learning process for students.