Video projects provide a great opportunity for students to work together to create something all team members can be proud of. But for any good project to come together, students need to have a plan and need to have roles within the group. This is true whether students are making an animated video made with Canva, a book trailer video made with Adobe Express, a documentary with WeVideo, or just about any other type of video project beyond a basic Flipgrid response video.

My hope is that this gives you some ideas for developing your own planning guide for your students based on their ages, skills, and interests.

Roles in the Group Project
It’s important to recognize that all of our students have different interests, strengths, and personalities. Some love to be on camera and love to hear their own voices. Others don’t want any part of being on camera and hate hearing their own voices played back to them (here’s an explanation of why that’s common). That’s okay because there can be a role that plays to the strengths and interests of every person in the group.

Here are some of the roles that I’ve given to or had students choose when working on group video projects.

• Script writer
• Voiceover artist
• On-camera performer
• Editor
• Fact-checker
• Researcher
• Materials gatherer
• Cartoonist
• Reviewer

Some of these roles can be and probably should be done by all group members. In my U.S. History classes if students were working in groups to make videos about an element of the American Revolution, all of the students would be involved in planning, researching, and script writing.