Using Video Notes for Sharing Personal Anecdotes

When I was in grade seven, my favourite subject was math. It was not my favourite subject before or after grade seven, but Mr. Luelo knew how to teach math: through stories or, perhaps more accurately in his case, through dad jokes.

Nearly thirty years later, I can still recall some of his words: “Our next unit is about an acorn.” An acorn? This was math, not science, but anything not related to numbers was aces in my books. “The acorn buried itself in the ground, got plenty of water and sunlight, and it grew and grew. One day, it looked around itself and said ‘gee-I’m-a-tree.’” Later in our geometry unit, he described a type of angle common in triangles: “it’s small, but such a pretty little angle! It’s got a dimple and curly hair and what a smile! It’s a handsome, no, a beautiful, no A-CUTE angle!”

It’s possible Mr. Luelo made up all his own jokes. It’s also possible he had a book of math jokes he memorized every summer. What I can say conclusively is that he engaged me as a teacher through his personality.

Great instructors naturally bring stories or jokes or personal anecdotes into their teaching, especially with in-person learning. Teachers have a wealth of knowledge about their subject, including trivia, opinions, personal experiences and memories.

When instructors take their content online, particularly for asynchronous courses, these stories often don’t make it into a lesson. In an in-person ancient civilizations class, a teacher may enthusiastically talk about his trip to Greece for five minutes, but he might feel self-conscious writing even a few lines about his personal experience in an online lesson. However, learners love these personal moments from their instructors, and they’re even more important in asynchronous classes, where learners crave connection with their instructors, as we all naturally, humanly do.

Physicians are encouraged to have a “bedside manner” because patients need more than just surgery or medicine to thrive, and physicians generally spend less time with their patients than instructors do with their learners.

Instructors who might hesitate to write a personal anecdote related to the course content can turn to Brightspace’s Video Note instead. Inside the Announcement Tool, teachers can create short videos via Video Note, sharing a piece of trivia, a personal anecdote or a joke, and making a connection with their learners at the same time. Instructors can invite learners to view the Video Note if they’d like to, giving a clear separation of required course content and additional material for learner engagement.

Instructors who post a Video Note with a story every week will likely discover this is their learners’ favourite aspect of the course. Maybe that required course will become a learner’s favourite on the strength of its teacher’s storytelling choices alone, as was the case with Mr. Luelo’s math class for me. Like acorns that grow with sunlight and water, learners will undoubtedly thrive with a combination of their instructors’ good content and a personal connection via Video Notes!