Attention Retention: Ensuring Your Educational Content Engaging Your Students

As teachers look for ways to improve practice and enhance student engagement, referral to the literature leads to a dichotomy between specific activity and heavy academic research on metadata and learning analytics. This paper is intended to tread the pathway between the two so that teachers can, using the findings, introduce video for flipped classes, or online teaching. Taking 5 iterations of an action research approach the authors present the techniques and principles for making an interactive video and clear examples of lesson design. The research was conducted at a Danish higher education institution in technical subjects, but the methods are applicable to most teaching situations. The outcomes are, that paying attention to the process of recording existing lecture content leads to interactive video. This new content can be embedded in a structured lesson design and can greatly improve educational outcomes and student engagement. The researchers’ goal was to create and sustain smart, rich and active learning environments in both online and in classroom environments, and utilize existing content across both platforms.