Teaching With Video

At my school, I see music classes for about a half hour at a time. If I’m teaching ukulele during that half hour, I’ll typically spend about 15 minutes going through the chords and rhythm for a particular song first (slowly), and then I’ll show a video of someone playing that song (Ukulele Underground, Ukulele Mike, or others). Of course, the chords used in the video match what I’ve just shown them.

I don’t always use video in ukulele class, but most of the time I do, for several reasons…

It gives the students a chance to listen to a different teacher (other than me, I mean). I’m thankful that for some unknown reason, the kids at my school seem to like me. But even on my best day, I now I’m capable of boring them. It seems to really maximize that half hour if the students are hearing the same information from a different voice.

While the students can learn from watching me play the chords, by letting them watch the video teacher, it frees me up to walk around the room and help individuals. It basically doubles my effectiveness as a teacher.

For students who have ukuleles at home and practice during the week, they can practice with the same video we used in class. It’s like taking a teacher home with them.

Of course, in some situations it might not be possible to use video – maybe in a location where the equipment or the internet connection isn’t available. But I’d guess that at least 75% of the time the equipment and connection are available, and I’ve found it to be an effective way to enhance ukulele teaching in the classroom. Sometimes when I’ve taught away from my classroom, I download the videos into my laptop first (so I don’t need an internet connection at the teaching location), and then take along a video projector.

My goal is to have my older students at school create teaching videos that I can use in the younger classes. We’ll see how that works out.

Let us know what you think. What videos have helped you? Or would you prefer to keep it simple and not use them?