Short is sweet. Hemingways famous six word short story packs more of a punch than a booker shortlist. The Sermon on the Mount is four and a half minutes long. Smart students will condense your course down to under 10 pages for pre exam review.
If you had just four minutes to teach your class, what would you say? Can you really condense a hour or two of material into three minutes? Can you create a dense, depleted uranium slug of knowledge powerful enough to get through the students skulls and set their intellect ablaze?
The now famous 'Machine is Us/ing Us' (4:32) clip shows that you can pack a lot in ideas into a short, intense burst of learning. There is nothing technically fancy in the production, but the art is in the design, storyboarding and script. It takes longer to create short things.
It's also hard to condense your own content. It's tough for you, as an expert, to see the central essense among all the 'vital' details.. Rowan Atkinson's Shakespeares editor (5:50) sketch reminds us that great editors make great writers. Try working with someone at the level of your students to help you. Work with someone who can be a critical eye and help to pare back your script.
And remember, once you have covered the key point, just stop.
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