What are
Video Assignments for Students
Video assignments are a form of authentic assessment that ask students to create and submit video responses to prompts or questions, allowing instructors to evaluate not just what students know—but how they communicate, reason, and present ideas in realistic, performance-based contexts. Authentic assessment methods like video assignments emphasize meaningful tasks that mirror real-world communication skills and professional performance.
Video assignments can greatly enhance the student learning experience. When students create their own video projects (“learner-generated video”), studies show that doing so is positively associated with deeper learning and better academic performance. Specifically, student engagement in producing learner-generated videos was found to be positively linked with perceived learning, which in turn was associated with higher academic performance in a higher education context (Wut & Wong, 2025).
Why faculty value video assignments
For instructors, video assignments support the shift from traditional exams toward authentic assessment practices that:
- Assess communication skills and the ability to explain work verbally or visually
- Provide students opportunities to practice professional-level presentations
- Encourage clearer, deeper expression of ideas beyond written text
- Create performance-based evidence of learning that closely reflects real-world tasks
- Reduce cheating by making it harder to replicate or plagiarize static responses
These advantages make video assignments especially useful for instructors who are:
- Looking to consolidate tools by bringing assessments into a unified platform
- Rethinking traditional assessment formats
- Teaching courses involving public speaking, presentations, or performance
- Prioritizing communication skill development
What video assignments are in Top Hat
In Top Hat, video assignments are delivered through video questions—instructor-created prompts that allow students to record a video response directly within the platform. Faculty can design questions around any topic where verbal or visual communication is meaningful, whether it’s a brief explanation of a concept, a miniature presentation, a reflection on a case study, or a demonstration of applied skills.
Top Hat’s video questions support flexible assessment goals:
- Participation grading: Video responses can be auto-graded simply for completion, making it easy to integrate into low-stakes formative work.
- Manual grading: Instructors can review and grade for correctness or communication quality as part of summative assessment.
- AI support: To help streamline manual review, Ace generates an AI-powered summary of video content, giving instructors a quick overview of what students said before they watch the full recording.
Who can benefit from using video assignments?
Video assignments for students can be used in any course, but they are especially effective in contexts such as:
- Public Speaking, Communication, or Business courses where verbal delivery is central
- World Languages courses where pronunciation, fluency, and cultural communication matter
- Performing Arts, Education, or Healthcare programs with performance or demonstration elements
- Courses where instructors want students to explain their work aloud, pushing toward authentic assessment rather than recall-based tasks
By supporting both participation and performance assessment, video assignments in Top Hat help instructors maintain a consistent workflow—assigning, collecting, and grading video work alongside quizzes, readings, and in-class activities without switching between multiple tools.