Design Effective Asynchronous Course Videos

Quick Links: | Prerequisites | Redesign Your Video Strategy| Troubleshooting | Next Steps |

Introduction

In asynchronous teaching, students often skip course videos even when instructors have invested significant time creating them. This usually happens because videos are harder to skim, search, and revisit than text-based materials, and students tend to focus on whatever most directly supports graded work. As a result, the issue is often not video quality, but a mismatch between the course design and the way students manage time and effort. A more effective response is to redesign how videos function in the course so they are purposeful, aligned, and easier for students to use.

Prerequisites

• You teach a course with asynchronous learning activities
• Your course currently includes or will include instructional videos
• You can update course materials, assignments, or weekly learning activities
• You are willing to review whether videos are aligned with assessments and class activities

Redesign Your Video Strategy

To make course videos more effective in an asynchronous course, do the following:

1. Review each video and identify its instructional purpose.
2. Ask what the video enables that other course materials do not.
3. Keep videos that provide explanation, demonstration, modeling, or nuance that students would not get as effectively from text alone.
4. Revise or remove videos that mostly repeat readings, slides, or assignment directions.
5. Break longer recordings into shorter segments focused on a single learning objective.
6. Rename videos with specific, task-based titles such as “How to Solve X Using Y” instead of broad titles such as “Week 3 Lecture.”
7. Make videos instructionally necessary by connecting them to an activity, discussion, or assignment that depends on ideas or examples from the recording.
8. Refer students to a specific portion of the video when possible so they know what to watch and why it matters.
9. Provide a second way to access the content, such as a summary, transcript, diagram, annotated slides, or worked example.
10. Use videos for depth and demonstration, and use text-based materials for quick reference and review.
11. Add light accountability, such as a short pre-class question, reflection prompt, or brief check for understanding tied to the video.
12. In courses that include live sessions, make sure the session clearly builds on the video so students can see that the pre-work matters.

Now your videos are more closely aligned with course goals and student workflows. This makes them more useful, easier to engage with, and more likely to support learning instead of becoming optional background material.

Troubleshooting

If students still skip videos, review whether the content is clearly tied to something they must do next, such as a discussion, quiz, or problem-solving activity. If students say videos take too long, shorten them further and provide a companion summary or transcript for faster review. If students can succeed without using the video at all, that usually indicates the video is redundant and should be revised, repurposed, or replaced with another format.

Next Steps (Optional)