The best way to use video in teaching history is short student-created segments for direct instruction. This post discusses what a group of teachers at the Education Study Group found works best for at-risk populations.

At my school, the figures are dismal: On the first day of school, you look at 23 students. Seventeen didn't eat breakfast at home, 16 struggle with English, five are designated Special Needs. On the last day of school, you still have 23, but nine of the faces changed without warning at some time during the year, due to high student mobility.

I'm not making excuses. To not acknowledge these hard facts would be educational malfeasance. It's where you start—with the student. Untangling these elementary students and teaching them to be lifelong learners of history is the goal, all the while striving to ensure they get what they need to pass NCLB requirements. In this environment, the correct use of video can be a lifesaver. In general, a large percentage of at-risk kids learn visually, in short bursts which can be repeated, at will. The Internet and digital video have made this a wonderful option.

When a short (two- to five-minute) video is played in class, we (the Education Study Group) recorded the highest student attention. Use a clip six to eight times in one lesson, and one gets the same attention numbers. This works with video clips from “expert” sources such as Discovery Education and some YouTube and TeacherTube videos, but the attention is heightened if the videos are created by students.

Our research found this is the best time to provide direct instruction. After the facts have been downloaded into your students' brains in this manner, then the discussion, examples, and inferences can be accomplished more easily.

If the same videos are put online where they can be accessed by the students, those who need to review can repeat the videos over and over. When the direct instruction video is played it triggers the ancillary information provided in class. Conversely, if the videos are of ancillary information and the direct instruction was provided via lecture, less is recalled by review of the videos.

Knowing the critical information is in the videos and online allows students to watch and interact in class, rather than take notes—an important element for success in at-risk populations.

Having students construct their own learning of history by building a video is great stuff, but many teachers do it backwards. They teach their regular lesson (lots of words, worksheets, and note taking) and then do something with technology as a "synthesizing" activity. That's not where technology goes. The research of Sugata Mitra and his "Hole in the Wall" experiment showed us that students should work in teams when using technology. In his experiment he placed computers throughout different remote regions of India and children were able to teach themselves to use the equipment, in small groups, without any external instruction. It is the research on which the global “one laptop per child” initiative is based.

In our research, we’ve taken that model and applied it using authentic publishing. We define "authentic publishing" simply by the fact that, once content is published, it can be Googled. There is a palpable difference in a student’s incentives when what they publish can be seen by a massive audience outside their classroom. When publishing information about U.S. history, for a project on the American Revolution for example, students (even very young students) get the added responsibility that people in the United Kingdom will actually be able to read what they write. They take care not to offend their audience. They understand they will be judged against everything out on the Internet, not just against their classmates' or teacher’s expectations. It energizes their writing, and spurs broader research.

Most important, it is completely self-initiated. Students review one another’s work without being directed to do so. They comment on one another’s work using the available tools (almost all online technologies have a comments feature). They learn from one another, and in the process of creation of the project, take those lessons and adapt and apply them to their own work. This collaborative learning is done, for the most part, without it being assigned, or even encouraged (though we do suggest teachers encourage this behavior).

We've done research over the past three years on how students use media at home. We find if they make it and publish it authentically, they review it repeatedly in production, and then at home with friends and family. We've found students watch their own media 25 or 50 times. And they repeatedly watch the media produced by other students in the class.

In one example, students were given a page to complete in a subject-specific wiki. They were shown the tools and allowed to use whichever media they wished. They worked in teams to accomplish their goals, even though they each had a separate page. The assignment was classical, with a standard rubric that could be used for any writing assignment. Teachers didn’t need to change the assignment parameters from what they would have assigned for a paper and pencil version. It was the medium which changed the paradigm.

What was most telling was students' activity at home. To a student, they would go home and review their page. They would show it to their brothers, their sisters, their friends, and parents. They would then look at the pages of each of the other students in their class. Then they would come in the next day and say something to the effect of, "I've got some new ideas on how to make my page better. Are we going to work on the wiki today?"

This example was a second-grade class with predominately special needs. Imagine the same activity, with worksheets. "A student goes home and reviews their worksheet, shows it to their siblings, friends, and parents. Then reviews the worksheet for everyone else in their class." It would never happen.

On the first day of spring break, it rained. Two students published videos on their pages that day. It's the power of publishing—authentic (Google-able) publishing—which provides the incentive, the power to this learning engine.

Our research illustrates students should construct their own visual media, developing parts of the direct instruction for the lesson. If they publish it authentically, they are motivated to excel due to a larger audience of peers and through competition with classmates. And they voluntarily review the material repeatedly.

Early elementary studies in history often focus on specific people. As students mature they are able to explore history over the course of periods of time and consider how certain events impacted other times and people. However, our youngest students do not have the necessary background knowledge and life experience to do so. As a result, early elementary history standards tend to be about individuals from the past.

My 1st graders study George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington Carver, at least according to our state standards. My school district has added Eleanor Roosevelt to that list, one assumes in order to have at least one woman. The standard relates to U.S. leaders and their contributions to our country.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the above individuals contributed to our country. However, I do think there are concerns with this approach. While heroes taught in this way can be inspirational, I believe we are setting our students up for disappointment in those heroes when they find out they were, in fact, human. In addition, making them too heroic risks many students today finding them not inspirational but intimidating, or at least unrelated to their own lives.

I believe that one of the benefits of studying how individuals have contributed to our country is to show children the possibilities for their future. My students, however, will not see themselves in any of these people. The majority of these individuals lived in prosperous situations, at least as adults. We can study Franklin and Lincoln’s early years with limited financial resources, but they are still white men, and a log cabin doesn’t resonate with a child living in an apartment with two other families. Carver also rose from difficult circumstances, but they are circumstances that are very difficult for young children to understand. My students are mostly first-or second-generation immigrants. They speak another language at home. They will struggle to see similarities between their lives and the individuals we study.

Also, studying individuals through their contributions shows one side of them only. Washington and Franklin certainly did contribute significantly to the development of our country. However, the way they are presented to young children suggests a near perfection to these men, a lack of complexity. In a few years, when they learn more about them, these students will be shocked to learn that Washington owned slaves and that Franklin fathered an illegitimate child, whose mother’s identity is unknown. We teach about Lincoln’s rise from difficult financial circumstances to become president of the United States. Students learn that he abolished slavery. They see him as a savior for an entire group of people without recognizing the complexities of his views on race.

As we study these individuals in my 1st-grade classroom we create a data retrieval chart to which we can continually refer. It includes their names, the dates of their lives, their contributions, and other interesting facts. I include the other interesting facts for two reasons. The first is that my students are often fascinated by things that aren’t really contributions and we need a place for those. Second, this is a window of opportunity for me to highlight human aspects of these individuals. Through the resources we use to study these leaders—books, videos, websites—I can draw out interesting facts that might surprise my students. I can point out that George Washington was a slave owner and we can talk a bit about that. We can count how many elections Abraham Lincoln lost on his route to the presidency. We will list on our chart their contributions and many positive or neutral interesting facts, but I will attempt to ensure that the men and women we study are seen as people, people who gave much to our country but who were still human beings.

As teachers we have a responsibility to know more about the individuals we teach than the standards state. While the complexities of people may be more than young students can grasp, we can be more careful about how we present individuals. It is easy to glorify historical figures but we should present them as human beings and look at their achievements through that lens. That will help our students see the possibilities in all they have to offer.