Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 512 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, how to create engaging micro lectures with Tolu Noah.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. I’m thrilled to be welcoming back to the show, Tolu Noah. She is the instructional learning spaces coordinator at California State University Long Beach, where she facilitates faculty development about teaching and technology. Previously, she was a senior professional learning specialist at Apple, helping educators nationwide explore how they could use iPads and MacBooks to enhance teaching and learning.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:15]:

Tolu also has 16 years of teaching experience in both higher education and k through 12. She was an associate professor in the undergraduate teacher education program at Azusa Pacific University, where she was honored to receive the university wide teaching excellence award in 2019. Prior to being a professor, Tolu was a 5th and 6th grade teacher in Los Angeles. Tolu is incredibly passionate about teaching, and she enjoys helping educators explore how they can effectively integrate content, pedagogy, and technology in support of student learning. She frequently presents workshops about a wide range of teaching and technology topics, and she was recently named by EdTech Magazine as one of the 30 Higher Ed IT Influencers to follow in 2013. Tolu, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:01:15]:

Thank you so much, Bonni. I’m so excited to be back.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:16]:

Could you start by telling us a bit about how did you first get interested in micro lectures?

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:02:24]:

Yeah. So I first became interested in micro lectures during the earlier stages of the pandemic when we were all trying to figure out how to keep learning going remotely and how to navigate the ebbs and flows of the different surges where one week you might be on campus and another the next week you might be back at home. And I had recently started my current faculty development position and was having discussions with my supervisor around ways that we could support faculty and basically teaching from anywhere. And he shared an article with me with me that had recently been published in Educause Review. And the article was called Short and Sweet, The Educational Benefits of Micro lectures and Active Learning by Hua Jing. And I remember reading the article and just thinking, yes, like if more faculty designed their instructional videos this way, like it could really enhance the student learning experience and their engagement when they’re watching these videos. So that Educause article sparked my initial interest in micro lectures. And from there I just kind of continued down the rabbit hole of learning more about micro lectures and video design principles.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:03:24]:

And I also created a workshop for faculty at my university about micro lectures and I’ve had the opportunity to write some articles and present externally at conferences and webinars about this topic too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:35]:

Including that I got to be part of a workshop that you led, and that’s why you’re here. So I was so much saw your name in the list.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:03:42]:

I was like, Monica.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:44]:

It was so good. I so appreciate how you inspire us, and you give us so many ways to experiment. And I’m curious. Do you have any favorite creators, whether it’s from something in higher ed or it could just be something totally having nothing to do with a discipline or that context that you really admire as far as being effective at these short videos.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:04:09]:

Yes. So I will actually share 3. 1 is tech based, another one is more faith based, and then the last one’s related to food. So random, but fun, right? So one of my favorite technology creators is an educator in the UK named Jacob Wilcock. He is an Apple distinguished educator who’s an expert in pretty much all Apple Dave. So Ipads, Macbooks and iPhones. And he has created literally hundreds of short tutorial videos about these tools. And I would say that his videos kind of fall into 2 major buckets.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:04:41]:

So some of them are more geared towards the general public. So anyone who uses an Apple device and wants to learn more about its features and whenever there’s a new major iPhone update, he actually makes a bunch of short one to 2 minute videos that highlight all of the latest features and how to use them. And I always find myself learning so much more about the power and potential of my devices through watching his videos than I would ever figure out just by kind of tinker, tinkering around on the device on my own. And then the other major category of videos that Jayco produces are iPad tutorials that are specifically geared towards educators and students who want to leverage iPads for teaching and learning. So using apps like Peanut or Clips or Imovie and more of an instructional capacity. And I think these videos do a really great job of not only guiding educators and students through like the step by step process for using the tool, but he also does a really great job of sparking creativity. Because typically when people think of apps like keynote, which is similar to PowerPoint, they think of it in a very limited way, like, oh, I can use this tool to create presentation slides. But Jacob really opens up so many more incredible possibilities with his videos.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:05:48]:

Like he’s done videos about how you can use Keynote to create course related animations and digital scavenger hunts and all sorts of things. So that would be my my favorite tech based creator. And then my next favorite video creator is a faith based organization called the Bible Project. And this was cofounded by Tim Mackey, who was a biblical scholar, and then John Collins, who was an experienced digital communication leader. And what they’ve done is they’ve kind of combined their unique backgrounds to make a really robust collection of short animated videos that explain the structure and history and themes and language of the Bible in a very clear and accessible way. And then my last one is a, like I said, the random one is a person who is a French pastry chef. His name is Amore Guichon and he creates these amazing, realistic and super detailed sculptures out of chocolate. So he’s made things like a train and a leopard and even like a life-sized working foosball table all out of chocolate.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:06:48]:

Oh. Yeah. It’s really awesome. And he like, he’ll show you the process from beginning to end. And he includes some really fun video elements like jump cuts where he’ll snap his fingers or tap on the table and the wheels of the train will appear. And it’s honestly such a joy to watch his videos because his creativity with chocolate is just out of this world. So yeah, those would be my 3 favorites, Jacob Wolcott, the Bible project, and Amoria Gishon. And if listeners are interested in checking out any of those videos, I can share links via the show notes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:18]:

Absolutely. We will have those links in the show notes. And one of the I feel like I wanna call them an old school creators that I have always appreciated is called common craft, and I remember watching their videos ages ago, and they would have cutouts that literally, they would make the cutouts and move them around with their hands. That was back in the day. I don’t know if they I don’t think they still make their videos that way, so it’s it’s kinda one of those things I have this debate with my friend at work all the time about she gets mad when stuff is so easily created with AI that’s so hard to do in actuality. So I kinda think it could be one of those professions. But when you go to their website, and, of course, they’re still making videos today, it says our product is explanation, and I get so inspired just thinking about these complex topics and how we can distill them down to make them easier to understand. And I’m actually on their website right now looking and seeing they have some new videos that I’m gonna have to go watch, one about generative AI, one about large language models.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:23]:

And so they’ve kept going for decades now, and it’s interesting to see how they’ve evolved and and continue to create and ideate. And now we’re gonna get more specific about micro lectures, what might be classified as that. How would we know if we were looking at a micro lecture? What are some of the characteristics of micro lectures?

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:08:45]:

Yeah. So that is a great question, and I usually like to start by explaining what they’re not because I think that kind of helps in understanding what they are.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:53]:

Yes.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:08:54]:

So micro lectures are not like your typical or traditional instructional videos. And what I mean by this is that in general, and I’m speaking in broad strokes here, traditional instructional videos tend to be long because the instructor will often record their entire lecture, which could be, you know, 60 minutes that they’re uploading to the LMS or the learning management system for people to watch. And traditional instructional videos can also be content heavy because through over the course of that video, the instructor might address a variety of concepts and skills. And because students are typically just expected to watch and listen, traditional instructional videos can be a very passive learning experience and it can also feel a little bit distant where students don’t really feel connected to the instructor as they’re watching the video. So as you can imagine, all of these factors can create some pretty significant barriers for learners. So when we think about the sheer amount of information that is typically addressed in a traditional instructional video, That can be a lot of information for students to process at once, which can increase their cognitive load. And it can also be really difficult to just remain attentive and engaged for a long time. And I’m sure we can all relate to that where you’re watching a video, talking about, you know, 20 minutes and you’re just like, Okay, I’m getting a little distracted here.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:10:02]:

So we want to be mindful of that. And then if we’re not asking students to actually do something with the information, they may not be able to retain it or apply it after the fact. And so micro lectures address many of the issues that are typically present with traditional instructional videos. And I’ll share the definition that Wajang shares in the Educause article, which is that a micro lecture is a short video usually produced by the instructor that explains a single key concept or a specific skill. So unlike typical instructional videos that address a lot of different things at once, micro lectures are super focused and they’re just zooming in on just one particular concept or skill at a time. And in that same article, So first of all, micro lectures are brief and they’re typically no longer than 10 minutes. I would say a lot of instructors actually aim more for 5 to 7 minutes to keep things even shorter. Secondly, they’re personal, meaning that the video fosters a sense of instructor presence.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:11:06]:

And one way to do this is just by including your video on the screen at the same time that you are explaining the content. And then 3rd, micro lectures are interactive. And this is what I think is one the most beneficial aspects of this video format is that micro lectures actually prompt students to do something with the information that they’re learning. And this can be through pause points where you actually tell students to pause the video and do some sort of activity like a reflection or a quiz or writing assignment, something like that. So as students are watching the video, they’re pausing at strategic points throughout to do activities that will really help the learning step. So in a nutshell, since we’re talking about micro lectures, I guess a a waste of summing that up is that it’s a targeted instructional video that is brief, personal, and interactive.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:51]:

When I got to attend your workshop on micro lectures, you challenged me in all the best ways possible to consider 4 instructional video design principles. And I know that you’re drawing from research on Mayer and their coauthors, but could you talk us through actually, you and I are gonna go together through each principle and point us to how we might push ourselves a bit to incorporate it into our own video creation. So the first characteristic we’re gonna look at here is signaling. How might we use signaling as we create our micro lectures?

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:12:30]:

Yeah. So but before I explain that, I just wanna kind of draw on something you said earlier. So Richard Bieder is considered kind of the godfather of multimedia learning and video design principles. I highly recommend checking out his work. And along with that, Cynthia Bream at Vanderbilt University has written a really great piece about effective instructional videos, too. So these principles are ones that both of them have written extensively about and I’ll I’ll share links to their work in the show notes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:54]:

Thanks.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:12:55]:

The first principle is signaling and this is the idea that when you’re creating an instructional video, you want to point out the key ideas in the video and this can be done in a few different ways. So one option is that you can verbally emphasize certain words and phrases while you’re speaking to kind of indicate their importance. But you can also do things like using visual cues in your videos. So things like arrows and highlighting to draw attention to important information or visuals on your slides. And signaling can really helps direct students attention to the key information in your videos and help them know what they should really focus on.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:30]:

The second principle is segmenting, and what might we do in order to use this technique in our videos?

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:13:39]:

Yeah. So segmenting is about really being intentional about how you chunk the information in your instructional videos. So if you were creating a micro lecture about the backward design process, for example, then you might have a segment about developing learning objectives and then a segment about assessments and then a segment about learning activities. So breaking up the video into those smaller segments can just make it easier for students to follow along and see how those different concepts are building upon each other. And I would say that another benefit of segmenting is that when you upload your videos to a platform like Youtube, you can actually break up the video into chapters based on the different chunks of content that you talked about in your video and this can make it much easier for students to review specific portions of the video in the future.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:24]:

Alright. This next one, I know so many of us struggle with. The 3rd principle is weeding. Oh, my goodness. We so often need to do this. Right? Alright. What do you recommend for us here, Tolu?

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:14:37]:

Yeah. So weeding is definitely the principle that many educators, myself included, need to be super mindful of and intentional about. And weeding is just about omitting any unnecessary information and visuals in your instructional videos. So basically anything that might be distracting to learners or that doesn’t really align with the learning objectives should not go in our videos. And this can include omitting unnecessary audio. So if you just have background music playing in your videos that can be distracting to learners, It can also include omitting unnecessary visuals. So thinking about our slide, you don’t want to have a ton of text there or a bunch of graphics that are flashing on the screen because that can be distracting. And also omitting any content that doesn’t really focus on the topic at hand.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:15:22]:

And weeding just helps to ensure that students’ cognitive resources can really be devoted to what’s important.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:28]:

When you talked about the audio and the background, I I’m not sure what it is about me that causes this to happen, but when somebody does have a track playing and especially if the volume hasn’t been brought down sufficiently, I cannot concentrate on what the person is saying. I can’t. I cannot do it. It really can be distracting, and I think sometimes we hear from other amazing creators, I’m thinking as you were sharing that, of the podcast, This American Life. And you listen to a podcast like that, and they make such incredible use of background music, but it’s transitioning to it. It’s part of the storytelling element. But without that refined I was gonna say refined eye, but it’s really refined ear. We can oversimplify what’s really happening and then just think that if we lay down a track, somehow that’s going to achieve the same effect, and it can do the opposite of what we want to.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:16:23]:

Yep. It just goes back to what you said about, like, we need to be intentional about it. Right? So in that podcast, they’re really intentional about where that audio is coming in. But if we just have the track playing the entire time, then that’s really competing with students, like focus when they’re watching a video.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:37]:

And speaking of intentionality, the 4th principle is matching modality. How should we approach this principle?

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:16:45]:

Yeah. So matching modality is about conveying information in multiple ways. So if you’re explaining something in your video verbally, then you also wanna have a related visual on the screen rather than just using audio or visuals alone to explain the content. So going back to the backward design example, instead of me just explaining the process of backward design verbally, perhaps I’ll also have a diagram on the slide where as I explain, as I explain each part of the framework, a related visual appears with the name of that part and perhaps an image like a target to represent objectives. So providing information in both audio and visual formats can just make it easier for students to process and retain the information. And we just talked about 4 principles of the signaling, segmenting, weeding and matching modality. Can definitely continue to explore this further. And I also wanted to call out the importance of always thinking about accessibility when creating instructional videos.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:17:47]:

So if you’re using slides in your micro lecture, you want to be mindful of things like the color contrast so that the information is perceivable. We also want to make sure that our videos always include accurate captions. And this is not only essential for students who are deaf and hard of hearing, but it’s also helpful for multilingual students and students who are watching videos in quieter noisy environments and so on. And you might even want to consider providing a transcript in addition to the caption video so that students have an additional option for how they can access the content. And this is just a good way to incorporate universal design for learning or UDL principles into your video design practices.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:18:22]:

So much of what you’ve touched on here so far comes down to intentionality, which I know you mentioned earlier, and it can feel so overwhelming. How am I gonna be able to do all the things? And you’ve created a tool that could help us help guide us a little bit. Tell us about the planning template.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:18:42]:

Yeah. So I made a micro lecture planning template to support instructors in planning the content and activities for their micro lectures. And I’ll just provide a description of what it is and what you’ll see. And then I’ll also provide the link to this in the show notes. But the planning template is divided into 5 main sections, which are pre planning, beginning of micro lecture, middle of micro lecture, end of micro lecture, and next steps. And in the pre planning section, you identify the course that the micro lecture is for, the topic you’re going to address. Once again, making sure to focus on just one concept or skill for the video. You also note the learning objectives that the micro lecturer will focus on and the assessment or what students will do to demonstrate their learning.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:19:25]:

And then the next three sections of the template focus on the beginning, middle, and end of the micro lecture. And for each of these sections, you outline both the content and the interactions. So the content would be the specific information you plan to teach or the skill that you plan to demonstrate during that part of the micro lecture. While the interaction is what students will pause and do to actively engage with that content. And throughout the template, I provide guiding questions that you can think about as you’re outlining the content for each section. And I also provide links to specific active learning activities that students could do to interact with the content. And then the last main section of the planning template is next steps. So here you would note the format you want to use for your micro lecture and the materials you’ll need in order to create your video.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:20:10]:

And in terms of format, there are endless options for how you can design your micro lecture. So you can make a simple talking head video using the built in camera app on your device or a website or app like Flip where it’s just you talking on the screen and perhaps using some visual or physical objects as visual cues to explain the concept. You can also do a narrated slideshow or screencast using tools like Keynote or PowerPoint or Loom where you add audio or video narration to your slides or you could do a digital whiteboard micro lecture where you use a tablet like an iPad to annotate the screen as you’re explaining the content similar to like the Khan Academy style videos. In terms of materials, you want to think about things like the device you’re going to use to record whether that’s your phone, your tablet or computer. Any specific apps you’re going to use and then instructional materials that you might need to create like slides or handouts. And then there’s also a bonus section at the very end of the template that has links to additional resources. So if you’re looking for even more active learning activities that you can incorporate into your micro lectures, you’ll find links to some of my favorite resources there, like the teaching tools, active learning library that was developed by Michael McCreery. So my hope is that the micro lecture planning template will be a helpful resource for faculty as they’re creating instructional videos.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:21:27]:

But also if you’re in an educational developer, that this is a tool that you can leverage to help support faculty in creating their instructional videos. And once again, I’ll provide a a link to the template in the show notes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:38]:

You spoke so much about intentionality, and you’ve now made it practical for us with this template and with all these other resources you’ve talked about. If we’re sitting here now feeling still pretty pretty inspired yet also overwhelmed, what would be your recommendation for just starting small? What’s what’s something that comes to mind for you for if it feels just overwhelming, where where do we begin with that feeling, and what might we do with it?

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:22:09]:

I love what you said, that phrase, let’s start small because that was what I was gonna say. And that’s how I would answer that question is just pick 1. You know? I think sometimes you feel this pressure that we need to make videos for everything and that’s not necessarily the Dave. And that can feel really overwhelming to feel like you have to revamp everything at once. But maybe you just want to start with a topic that your students have been struggling with and make us a really short micro lecture that addresses that specific topic. And then from there you can continue to build moving forward. So I think like you said, starting small is key and giving yourself the time and space to continue to build your library of resources moving forward. And I would also add that if you’re part of a department where there are other people that are using instructional videos in their practice, really leveraging the collective power of your team, so that you’re not having to make all of the videos yourself can be another way to make this process feel a little bit less overwhelming.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:02]:

Well, this is the time in the show in which we each share our recommendations, and the reason I’m jumping straight to it is because of what you just said. You quoted flower Darby in the workshop that I was so privileged to be able to attend all about this idea of starting small, and you quoted her from her 2019 book, small teaching for online teaching. And and here’s what she had to say. Start with 1 mini lecture. Is there a concept that has always been hard to convey in your online class? There’s the subject of your first mini lecture video. Next time you teach that class, add a couple more, And this springboarded me to I don’t even know how I found this. Usually, I Dave note of how I found it, but I can’t in this Dave. But adrianne maree brown  has a wonderful piece of writing that I’d like to share that she published back in 2019, and it’s entitled, if you can’t see the small.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:03]:

Look here. Here. If you can’t see the small, you will keep from leaping from built thing to built thing, begging the sky to rain only on you. You’ll become a tyrant, reaching, shuffling the cards until you see only your own vision. Massive. But no one else can see it. If you can’t see the small, you miss the whole miracle. It is all moments nearly missed, private, impossible to perform, or perfectly acted context and all moments of faith hit the surface and change it, shivering us open to love our ridiculous longings.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:49]:

If you can’t see the small, you may never feel true love. It comes with the slimmest shadow of warning. Whisper clacking spider toes up your spine. To love is to truly lose the only thing you can ever truly Dave, and never buy for love. True. The whole surrender kind starts with a gasp. If you can’t see the small, you may never know pleasure, which is not about the immersion into eternal bliss. No.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:23]:

It is the printed pad of your finger grazing along my shoulder as you realize you need to feel me. It is inside where the sun, wind, rain, and earth have never touched you, but I have. If you can’t see the small, you won’t know what the dirt is screaming, one grief at a time, that the whales are singing warning songs, that there is a shutter in all of life now, a premonition, change everything for everything is changing. I go from the incredible, beautiful writing of adrianne maree brown  to a TikTok trend, I would also like to recommend a tiny microphone. I started seeing this from the students at our university as they would go about interviewing each other on various Instagram videos that they would post. These are adorable tiny, tiny, tiny microphones that you can purchase for all of about 10 or so dollars, and they will plug into your phone and allow you to get better audio than your phone’s gonna pick up on its own. And, also, it’s just kind of silly and generates a a lot of authentic responses in my experience. And, finally, also sort of having to do with audio, video, lighting, whatever, is a is a device called a Flic.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:50]:

That’s f l I c. And this connects to your Apple HomeKit or your Amazon Alexa, and it allows you to control things that you might be able to control through their those networks. We use it a lot in our house for lights, and we’ll have on a nightstand where you can turn off the light right from there without having to get up and walk across the room in order to do so. And they’re just really fun fun things that you can do. They also can trigger other sorts of routines, play music. You can imagine your imagination here is limitless. They’re very simple, just different ways you push the button, whether you double push it, whether you push and hold, or a simple a simple push of the button that’s not that length of your hold. So those are my recommendations, and, Tolu, I’m gonna pass it over to you for yours.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:27:43]:

Awesome. So my recommendation is directly related to today’s topic of instructional videos, and it’s a book by Karen Costa entitled 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos. And in this book, Karen shares practical advice you can use throughout the video creation process. And what I really love is her emphasis on a humanized approach to video creation and her reminders throughout the book that our videos don’t have to be perfect in order to be effective, which is something I honestly struggled with of like, Oh, no, I made a mistake. Let me record it again and again. And she’s just like, it’s okay. Like what you have is I think the phrase she uses is satisfies. Like it’s it’s good enough.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:28:23]:

And Karen also shares some really helpful tips around how to keep your videos evergreen so that you can reuse them in the future. So things like not mentioning due dates and holidays and other term specific information. So if you create instructional videos or support others in doing so, I definitely recommend checking out Karen’s book.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:40]:

I need to revisit her suggestions on how to keep videos evergreen because I get myself into so much trouble with that. Good advice. Good advice. Well, it has been such a joy to have you back on the podcast. When you’ve been on previously, I guess, I hear from more people just about the ways in which you challenge us, you encourage us, and give us so many resources. So thanks for coming back this time to talk about micro lectures.

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah [00:29:09]:

Thank you so much, Bonni. It’s great being back.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:13]:

It was so great to reconnect with Tolu Noah for today’s episode, which was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while and have yet to sign up for the weekly updates, head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes show notes as well as some other resources that don’t show up in said show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.

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