Attract students
With online courses popping up everywhere and traditional institutions upping their game, competition for students is fierce. A paper prospectus and a stool at a school fair just won’t cut it.
Meet your students where they are: online video. 18-34 year olds accounted for 90% of online video consumption in 2015 (Tube Filter). That’s too strong a statistic to ignore.
Vlogs
Pepperdine college recently released a vlog for prospective students. Episodes give an enticing picture of college life and allow Pepperdine to extend its audience. Win.
Microlearning Videos
Create bite-sized lessons, interview students and teachers or give tasters of classes. Pop those on your website and you double your chances of grabbing student attention. After all, viewers spend 100% more time on pages with video on them (MarketingSherpa).
Retain students
Who wants to put resource into doubling the student body if they’re just going to drop out after a year? Fear not…
Flip your classroom
In the flipped classroom, students learn key concepts from videos at home. Class time is used to strengthen understanding through interactive discussions. Teachers become facilitators of discussions or practical sessions and can more effectively monitor student understanding. Engagement becomes inescapable.
In 2011, Clintondale Uni flipped all their classes. The result? Attendance rose, while failure fell by 20%.
I feel, therefore I learn
We’re more likely to remember information we learn when we’re happy. Learning in a pleasurable environment releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. This speeds up the transition of short term memories to long term ones.
Make your students smile! Encourage faculty to tell stories, include visuals, or gamify their classes. Students will be more likely to remember them.
Extend your reach over campuses and countries
Make your lessons available to students anytime, anywhere so that you reach those who live overseas or who need to juggle studies around a hectic schedule. Gresham College film lectures and release them on their website to reach their global audience.
“Although we are reaching thousands of people in London in our lecture halls each year, we are reaching millions online through our videos.” (James Franklin, Communications Manager).
Include subtitles in your videos to appeal to a multilingual audience or the hearing impaired. Students can watch lessons as many times as they need to fully understand concepts. No more hurriedly scrawled notes or awkward misunderstandings.
Appeal to every type of learner
It goes without saying that videos include visual aids and usually speech or a soundtrack (auditory). Throw in some text, a quiz or an interactive game for your read/ write and kinesthetic students and you’re engaging everyone in one go!
There you have it. You can reach global audiences, attract more students, improve engagement AND appeal to every type of learner by adopting video.
All you need is a camera and some willing participants.