Using Video Clips To Improve Our Lives

If you want to see some clips that help me know “How to Live Better” click here.
If you want to see my favorite clips on “The Secret to Finding Joy – Our Thoughts”
If you want to see some clips that remind me to be grateful, click here.
If you want to see clips that help me best understand relationships, click here.
If you want to see clips of a few favorite speakers, click here.
If you want to see a few of my favorite clips from Simon Sinek, click here.
If you want to see a few of my favorite clips from Jordan Peterson, click here.

For hundreds of years, people learned primarily by reading words on a page. And before people could read, they listened to others speaking. But at the start of the 21st Century, when Youtube and the Iphone allowed us to record and share video easier than ever before, a massive shift in learning has occurred.

The shift to ubiquitous filming and sharing of videos has resulted today in humans learning more from watching than reading. Any why not? Would you rather read words on a page/screen or hear those same words spoken by someone acting them out? Plus, if you use Closed Captioning, you can still read the words on the screen. Video offers so many more contextual and emotional clues that focus the mind on what the content. The research shows that humans learn best when our emotions are activated and we are much more likely to have our emotional centers triggered when watching video.

In the mid 2010s, I learned that my students were only reading ~50% of what I assigned to them. I was giving them less reading content every year, 75% less than what I had once been expected to read, and yet they were still not doing it. I learned that I could compel the behavior but testing them but that created a teacher-student relationship that was the opposite of what what I wanted in the classroom.

So, as I became fascinated by TED Talks, podcasts, speeches, and RSA Animates, I decreased my reading assignments and increased videos. I discovered that if I could find the best videos in the world on the topics I was asking them to read about, they would not only enjoy watching those entire videos, but they would come to class much more prepared to discuss and learn more!

At one point ~2020, I was having students digest class content by video for 75% of the time vs. reading articles or books. Based on both quantitative and qualitative assessments in the class, the students were learning more than I had seen in a decade and giving me excellent feedback on my classes!

In short, if a picture says a 1,000 words, a video can say 1,000,000 words. I quickly learned that TikTok (and eventually other apps) provide access to short crowd-upvoted videos, that captured not only my mind and heart, but also others’. Using TikToks relevant to the content in my classes resulted in my students’ fascination with the clips and requests to access many of my TikToks.

The reality is that I have several thousand TikToks organized into >50 folders. These folders are primary focused on 1) learning about myself and others, 2) stories that inspire and motivate me, and 3) things that make me laugh. I rewatch many of my TikToks on a semi-annual basis as they refocus my attention on things I want to internalize, things that keep my happy, and moments that touch my heart.