Dressing Up Engagement Strategies

As I mentioned in my September blog post, I have been working on making tip videos in my classroom which highlight tricky concepts for students and seek to correct misconceptions before they happen. I have been successful with these videos and noticed an increase in the quality of student work that I have been receiving since I made them. However, I noticed that some students were still not watching the videos (Screencast-o-matic lets me check my view count for each video). I did notice that I had a higher view count than any other week during the week that I dressed up for Halloween. This got me thinking, perhaps students would be more likely to watch a video if I dressed in something silly or unusual. Students are able to see a thumbnail of the video when I embed it into my announcements. Cassie Stephens, a fellow Art Ed blogger is the queen of dressing up for the art classroom. I am not quite to the point of making my own outfits, but here are some of my silly video outfits:

This seems to be entertaining students as much as it is entertaining me. My view counts have almost doubled since I switched to costumes!