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Delivering Content In the Online Environment

Peter Paccone
20 min readNov 5, 2020

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And the question of whether you can just take the material you’ve provided your students over the years and put it online

This summer, teachers by the thousands are preparing to enter the era of online teaching and as they search the internet to find out how best to deliver the content, they are sure to bump into many a warning sign that reads something like this:

“You can’t just take the material you’ve provided your students over the years and put it online. That doesn’t work and the research bears out this claim. Instead, what you have to do is adapt your instruction for the online format and that means not only choosing your content more carefully but it also means employing a whole new set of skills to deliver that content.”

Nonsense! To get your students to learn what they need to learn, you can certainly do what you’ve always done.

Sure, some of it might not work, but before you go out and try to reinvent the wheel, I suggest starting off the year with what you know and do best, for much of what you already do will surely transfer over well to the era of online teaching.

Many of the best practices in online content delivery are in fact the same as for face-to-face delivery, or so my experience with online teaching suggests.

On the other hand, as you move into the year, you just may want to consider putting before your students one or more:

  1. Content-rich videos that you have produced
  2. Content-rich videos produced by others
  3. Content-rich project-based learning opportunities
  4. Content-rich remotely conducted interviews
  5. Content-rich, high-end slideshows
  6. Content-rich AP Daily videos

Content-Rich Videos That You Have Produced

Perhaps you’ve gone down this path already? If so, how’s that worked for you?

I ask because though I too have gone down this path, I’m not a big fan of where this path headed.

For the subjects I teach, there are simply too many high-quality, teacher produced videos appearing on youtube for me to invest the time and effort, so why bother. Instead, I just put before my students the videos produced by others.

On the other hand, there are some gaps, and to fill these gaps, I have indeed produced a few videos of my own.

From this experience, I have learned several all-important lessons aside from the ones typically found online.

Scripting Makes a Difference: Scripting makes your recording shorter and more concise. It also ensures that you won’t forget any of the material you wanted to present. Above all else, it makes the content you’re seeking to deliver crisper sounding and easier to understand.

Script For the Ear: I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. Writing for the listener is not the same thing as writing for the reader. A different writing skill is in order and to learn how to script for the ear, I suggest checking out the following: My Top Ten Tips When Writing for the Ear and 5 Ways to Write for the Ear, Not for the Eye.

Share Your Script: If you make your script available along with your video, your students will benefit from being able to follow along. Furthermore, their parents will surely appreciate the gesture. Besides, if your students don’t have the bandwidth to access your videos without it causing undue stress and hardship, the providing of a script will allow your students to learn the content even if they can’t watch the video. I just think that in the era of online teaching (and especially during this pandemic) we need to do all we can to provide our students with an opportunity to learn the content at their own pace, place, and time. Grace.

Remember, Perfection isn’t Required: In fact, many teachers I’ve talked to say that their students appreciate the humanness of a teacher when things didn’t go as planned. So feel free to botch a line or two, especially if/when you choose to stray from your script and speak off the cuff. That’s usually where I get tripped up, but It will be ok. Certainly that’s been my experience.

Keep Your Videos Short: Though there are some who suggest that your videos should be kept to 15 minutes or less, I suggest never producing a video that exceeds 5 minutes in length. As the University of Indiana Department of Education points out in its article Making Your Own Videos, “(In the era of online teaching especially) we’re all competing with all the lovely cat videos out there on the Internet . . . so we need to break up our videos into reasonably-sized units. Research shows that shorter videos are more engaging. In fact, researchers at Columbia University found that the average video watching time in their graduate/certificate courses was only four minutes.”

When working to produce content-rich videos of my own, here are some articles that I have found worthwhile..

The overriding point to be kept in mind here is the importance of “showing your face.” Teachers who show their faces, research suggests, are more effective than teachers who don’t and here’s why, according to Bloomsburg University Professor Karl Kapp. “For many students, hearing a disembodied voice over their computer is not a normal or natural way of thinking about “being in class.” This said in Kapp’s, March 2020 blog post Tips for Those Who are New to Online Teaching.

In other words, “it’s harder to connect on a human level with people when they exist in two dimensions on your computer screen or mobile device. You need to work extra hard to make sure you’re interacting in a way that allows you to build genuine, meaningful relationships (as pointed out in a Forbes 2018 Forbes article entitled How to Build Real Relationships in the Virtual World,)

So take a few moments, whenever possible to show your face . . . and not just to deliver the content but to also build rapport (Building Rapport in the Era of Online Teaching)

On the other hand, I suspect there are many teachers out there who chafe at the idea of showing their face, if only because of the fear of appearing before a camera (aka Zoom Anxiety).

To complicate matters, I also suspect that there are a large numbers of teacher who, though they may be comfortable with the thought of appearing before a camera, are not at all comfortable with the thought of delivering content in a way that can be viewed and judged not just by their students, but also by their students’ parents, siblings, and anyone else who manages to gain access to the class..

In any event, if you suffer from “zoom anxiety, I strongly recommend the following reads, with these reades being recommended by someone who has long suffered from stage-fright and who has nonetheless come a long way in learning to manage that fear.

Content-Rich Videos Produced by Others

Above, I suggested that as you move into the era of online teaching you should give serious thought to creating one or more videos of your own.

On the other hand, if the thought of producing your own videos leaves you feeling overwhelmed, you are sure to find relief in a March 2020 blog post entitled 14 Simple Tips for Better Online Teaching.

There it says that “since it’s unrealistic to expect that you, on your own, should produce a semester’s worth of high quality videos, you might want to consider using pre-developed, open access, videos found online”

Sure, this will mean sharing the spotlight and therefore not all eyes will be focused on you and what you have to say all the time. But is that so bad? Not for me.

In my US History class, I in fact frequently put before my students various content-rich, high quality 3–5 minute videos produced by super talented US History teachers such as Tom Richey, Adam Norris, Matthew Beat the teachers behind what’s called Reading Through History and Course Hero, the Green Brothers and their Crash Course videos, and the teachers who produce so many outstanding history-related TED-Ed Lessons.

And in my US Government class, I put before my students videos produced by the likes of Kelsey Falkowksi, Steven Heimler, and Carey LaManna.

And of course, I also put before my students, in both classes, the videos produced by the Khan Academy

There are just so many content-rich, high-quality videos on youtube today! As

Gene Almeida, a friend of mine and a super talented and well-experienced teacher, has said “When school shut down in March, I at first wanted to create my own videos, if only to show my students that I knew the content. Besides, I told myself, I have a phone, so how hard can it be? Then I was reminded of one of the first rules of teaching. Do not recreate the wheel. So for the first time in my career, I went to youtube in search of content-rich videos produced by others. There I found several very good videos which I incorporated into my lessons to great success!’

If you need more convincing, consider the following

Regardless of whether you decide to produce some videos of your own, or you seek to incorporate into your curriculum some videos produced by others, I strongly suggest that you give your students a chance to produce videos designed to teach the needed content to other students in your class. My guess is that many of your students will much enjoy sinking their teeth into this kind of work.

Below some examples of content-rich, high-quality, student-produced videos.

  • The Sears Mail Order Catalogue: The Amazon of the Past Century. What exactly was the Sears Mail Order Catalogue? When and why was it first published? To what extent if any did it affect and/or impact the lives of Americans living away from the cities? San Marino High School APUSH student Olivia Kuhn answers these questions and more in this Tom Richey knock-off video. Produced with Tom Richey’s support and guidance.
  • The Rise and Fall of William Magear Tweed. William Magear Tweed, aka “Boss Tweed” was a corrupt 1800s, New York City, Democratic party leader. Tweed’s rise and fall is detailed in this very informative Tom Richey knock-off video produced by San Marino High School AP US History student Calvin Ryan. Produced with Tom Richey’s support and guidance.
  • The Sultana Steamboat Explosion of 1865: The Sultana was a Mississippi River steamboat which exploded on April 27, 1865, in the worst maritime disaster in US history. Where the Sultana exactly was at the time of the explosion, what caused the explosion, how many people died and/or were injured as a result of the explosion, and how does this maritime disaster compare to other maritime disasters worldwide? These questions, and more, are answered in this extremely well done student-produced whiteboard animation. This work produced by San Marino High School Honors US History students, Brandon Tran, Stanley Pan, and Taylor Shen
  • The Exodusters and Their 1879 Migration to Kansas: The term Exodusters refers to the thousands of African Americans, from the southern states along the Mississippi River, who migrated to Kansas in 1879. What were the push factors? The pull factors? Where in Kansas did the Exodusters settle and what did they do in Kansas after having settled. Find out the answer to these questions and more in this San Marino High School student-produced TED-Ed Lesson. Created by two San Marino High School AP US History students, Carolyn Holt and Lilianne Fisher.
  • The Battle of Little Bighorn Between 1865 (the end of the Civil War) and 1898 (the start of the Spanish American War) competition for natural resources and land in the West among white settlers and American Indians led to an escalation in violent conflict. One bit of evidence in support of this claim is the Battle of Little Bighorn (aka Custer’s Last Stand.) in this extremely well done Lego stop animation video, San Marino High School AP US History students Allain Phung and Enzo Repetto walk us through all this — the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War.

Content-Rich Project-Based Learning (PBL) Opportunities

Project-Based Learning (PBL), according to the folks at PBLWorks, “is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge.”

In other words, it’s where students learn the needed content by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects, with this work to

  • Last anywhere from a week up to a semester.
  • Call upon the students to solve a real-world problem or answer a complex question.
  • Require students, upon the completion of the work, to demonstrate their knowledge and skills by creating a public product or presentation for a real audience.

Now my guess is that most teachers have already heard about PBLWorks, the offshoot of the Buck Institute for Education (the epicenter of the word of PBL)

I’m also guessing that most teachers have already heard that today, an ever-increasing number of education leaders are calling upon teachers to place one or more PBL’s before their students this fall.

My school principal certainly has said as much and I for sure will follow his advice, for I’ve been a big fan of PBL for many years, long believing that PBL not only helps students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills but it also unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers.

The bottom line, as a well-respected online teacher leader recently said: “PBL is likely an ideal model of student-centered learning for blended and online environments, because these environments provide additional flexibility in time and space — two resources highly-valued, yet often limited, in the face-to-face classroom.”

On the other hand, where’s the evidence to support this claim?

The fact is that as educators Nell K. Duke and Anne-Lise Halvorsen have pointed out “Though there is no shortage of evidence showing the beneficial impact of project-based learning on student outcomes in traditional face-to-face classrooms, this progressive instructional strategy has yet to be adapted to work in conjunction with the advancements in blended and online education. Effective PBL in the online or blended classroom just seems to depend so much on the teacher’s ability to design high-quality online content” and consequently “translating PBL principles into the online environment has been a challenge for K-12 teachers and curriculum developers.”

So what to do if you decide to go down this path.

  1. Go Slow. As Andrew Miller points out in his article Getting Started With Project-Based Learning “It’s easy to go too big when you first start with PBL. I’ve heard from many teachers new to PBL that a large, eight-week integrated project was a mistake. It was difficult to keep momentum, and students often grew tired of the project itself. Teachers and students both need to consider their own scaffolds and a gradual release to more long-term and complex PBL projects.”
  2. Provide Options for Your Students. As John Spencer points out in his website How to Make PBL a Reality in a Long Distance Learning Environment, “If you have access to book work, handouts, or packets, allow students to opt out of the project and choose the more traditional assignment instead. This doesn’t mean that PBL isn’t for them. It simply isn’t for them right now. By giving students the option between a project and a packet, you’re actually honoring their agency as a learner. You’re saying, “these are chaotic and unpredictable times but I’m going to give you some control over what type of learning you need right now.”
  3. Take PBL Away from the Screen. In the words of John Spencer, “If you walk into a PBL classroom, there’s a good chance that you’ll see movement and conversations. You might even see hands-on learning, with tools and physical materials. Now shift toward distance learning. Chances are you’ll see students working alone in front of a laptop or a tablet. However, distance learning doesn’t have to mean spending hours in front of a screen. Students can still do hands-on prototyping and engage in movement as they work on projects at home. In many cases, the physical environment might even allow for more movement than a typical classroom, where you have a small space and tons of furniture.”

In any event, If you’re interested in learning more about the PBL model, I strongly suggest taking a close look at the following:

Content-Rich Interviews Conducted Remotely by Your Students

Over the years, I have increasingly provided my students with an opportunity to learn the needed-content via something I call “video conference interviews.”

To give you just some idea:

  • When my US History students needed to learn about America’s last days in Vietnam, they interviewed Mikki Nyguen, the author of My Father The Badass and the narrator at the beginning of the 1:57 youtube video entitled One By One We Jumped Out. Miki not only shared in detail the story of his father’s bravery during the last few days of the Vietnam War, he also shared what events lead up to his father’s heroic helicopter ditch at sea and life afterward in America.
  • When my US Government students needed to learn about the 1st Amendment’s right to free expression, they interviewed Mary Beth Tinker, the American free speech activist known for her role in the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District Supreme Court case, (a case in which the court ruled that Warren Harding Junior High School could not punish Mary Beth for wearing a black armband in school in support of a truce in the Vietnam War. The case set a precedent for student speech in schools.)
  • When my US History students needed to learn about post World War II America, they interviewed Jonathan Eig, the author of Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season.
  • When my US Government students needed to learn about the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, they interviewed Norma McCorvey and her attorney, Sarah Wedington. Norma is better known by the legal pseudonym “Jane Roe”, the plaintiff in the 1973 US Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade (the case in which the court ruled that state laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.)
  • When my US History students needed to learn about Operation Homecoming and the return of 591 American prisoners of war (POWs) held by North Vietnam following the Paris Peace Accords that ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, they interviewed Lynne Spickard. Lynne is the girl with outstretched hands at the center of Burst of Joy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Associated Press photographer Slava “Sal” Veder, taken on March 17, 1973 at Travis Air Force Base in California. The photograph came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and the prevailing sentiment that military personnel and their families could begin a process of healing after enduring the horrors of war.

From this experience, I have learned that video conferencing interviews, especially in the era of online teaching, can not only provide students with a highly rewarding, innovative, and engaging experience that empowers them to connect to their own learning process, it can also be used to provide students with the needed content.

If you wish to learn more about how to get your students to learn the needed-content via video conference interviews, check out the below.

Also, feel free to contact

  • Sean Forde: Elementary school teacher (American School of Milan, Italy) and 2017 ISTE Interactive Video Conferencing Educator of the Year sforde@chadwickschool.org.
  • Jan Zanetis: Managing Director, The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration and award-winning industry leader with over 20-years of experience. She has written extensively about the application of video conferencing technologies in education. jzanetis@cilc.org.
  • Amy Rosenstein: Elementary School Teacher (Westchester County, N.Y). arosenstein@ardsleyschools.org.
  • Ralph Krauss: Executive Digital Coach (Pinecrest Academy, NV.) Ralph.Krauss@pinecrestnv.org
  • Nicole Lakusta: Curriculum Educational Technology Facilitator, Parkland School Division #70, Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada, 2018 ISTE Interactive Video Conferencing Network Educator of the Year.
  • Peter Paccone: Social Studies Teacher (San Marino High School, CA). 2018 ISTE Interactive Video Conferencing Educator of the Year ppaccone@smusd.us.

Content-Rich High-End Slideshows

By the term “content-rich high-end slideshow” I am referring to something that goes well beyond the typical slideshow.

What I’m referring to is a slideshow that:

  • Aligns 100% with what a teacher is called upon to teach and nothing more. In other words, there’s no fluff.
  • Presents the content concisely, in as organized a fashion as possible, and in a way that doesn’t require the teacher to do a voice over. In other words, it should contain no gaps, no vagueness and ambiguity, and no skipping around, thus being able to prove of great value to tutors, special ed teachers, parents, and/or anyone else wishing to assist students in the learning of the needed content.
  • Includes many high-quality, content-rich, relatively brief, Youtube videos produced by either the teacher, other talented educators, or both.
  • Emphasizes the important content (as opposed to spending equal time on minor points or details)
  • Is rich with stories, personal examples, and/or examples that clarify and amplify the important content
  • Is visually pleasing to look at.
  • Give students a chance to engage in some kind of active learning exercise (ample opportunity to discuss, debate, engage in a Socratic seminar, create something, etc.)
  • Can be copied and easily modified by the students to suit their needs.
  • Contain excerpts from many primary sources, as well as links to many relevant and on topic articles
  • Contains some way for students to be able to turn the content appearing into the slideshow into a handy and user friendly exam review sheet.
  • Includes test prep strategies.

To put it another way, I view a content-rich high-end slideshow as something that you put before your students at the beginning of the year and that then allows your students to learn the needed content at their own pace, place, and time, thereby not causing students to feel dependent on the teacher for the delivery of the content.

I think this is something we all must do, if only in the event that something happens to us as a result of Covid. In other words, I want my students to have what they need even if I have to go into the hospital or worse.

Furthermore, I agree with Jon Bergmann (the Flipped Learning pioneer) when he says that for online teaching to work well, we must now more than ever move direct instruction from the group learning space to the individual learning space, AND transform the resulting group space into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides as much as possible.

For that to be done, content-rich, high-end slideshows will all but become necessary.

As for the question of how to hold students accountable when a teacher thus “flips the learning”, this question I will address in a future blog post (Assessing Student Content Knowledge in the Era of Online Teaching)

In any event for my AP US History course, I have produced nine content-rich, high-end slideshows, one for each of the nine units (aka time periods) of the course.

  • My APUSH Period I Content Delivery System
  • My APUSH Period II Content Delivery System

I’ve also produced two of five possible content-rich, high-end slideshows for the US Government course.

  • My APGov Unit II Content Delivery System
  • My APGov Unit III Content Delivery System

(To view something similar, but in the form of a website, click here. Produced by APGov teacher TA Eilerts, “this website” says Eilerts “has every unit completed with helpful links and videos to help explain the concepts for students. I managed to even get every single optional Illustrative Example from the CED available here. I also have a section explaining the Big Ideas and another explaining the format of the exam, using the diagrams from the CED but I put them into a readable format for students. It was a lot of work to produce, but the whole thing paid off last semester when I couldn’t be in the class with my students so hopefully it can help you or your students.”)

Now sure, to produce a slideshow (or website) like this takes a great deal of time, but then I didn’t produce these slideshows on my own. I have a team of teachers who helped out tremendously. That said, if you too decide to go down this path, I strongly suggest that you too not go it alone.

The end result, if my experience proves anything, is that you and your team will produce something that many other teachers will want to acquire.

In my case, the truth is that there are literally hundreds of AP Gov and AP US History teachers who have formally asked for and received a link to my slideshows since schools announced that they, in some form or another, would begin the year with instruction taking place online.

As for the teachers who used my slideshows last year — so many emails I have received this summer with words of thanks and appreciation.

I share this not to brag, but to reveal how sought after content-rich, high-end slideshows will become in the era of online teaching.

One other thing that will be highly sought after in the era of online teaching is a high-quality learning management system (LMS).

A LMS is “a software application that helps the teacher deliver assignments to students, conduct tests and other tasks, track student performance, and keep records.”

More on this in a later post, but for now, just this.

AP Daily Videos (assuming you’re an AP teacher)
Building on the success of the AP Live review sessions that were introduced in March 2020, College Board will launch on September 1 a similar video series called AP Daily.

This resource will offer AP students daily support on each topic and practice applying relevant skills in every unit in short, segmented videos that can be used in-person, online, and in blended learning environments.

CB will launch Unit 1 videos first and continue to release future units on a rolling basis, with all AP Daily videos available on AP Classroom.

  • The videos will build students’ knowledge and skills across units..
  • At least one AP Daily video will be available for each topic listed in each unit.
  • AP teachers can incorporate AP Daily videos into their lessons — in person, online, or in a blended learning environment.
  • Students and educators can watch the videos on a mobile device or computer with internet access.

Closing

Without a doubt, content delivery is one the most challenging — as well as one of the most important — aspects of developing an online course. Also true, the best way to deliver content online varies from course to course.

Therefore, when it comes to the question of how best to deliver content in the era of online learning, I’m certain that what I’ve presented in this post will in no way prove exhaustive.

There’s certainly much more that we can do . . . things that I should have put into this post but failed to include . . . and so if you wish to comment on something presented or if you have something new to offer, I would very much like to hear from you.

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Peter Paccone
Peter Paccone

Written by Peter Paccone

573 Followers
40 Following

Social studies teacher, tutor, book author, blogger, conference speaker, webinar host, ed-tech consultant, member of College Boards AI in AP Advisory Committee.

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