Showing Videos in Class

Today, Mrs. Ellis showed her class a couple of videos on Mount Everest to introduce the book the class will be reading very soon titled Into Thin Air. Before showing the first video, she passed out a circle map for the class to fill out. On the outside of the circle, students were to write the knowledge of Mount Everest that they already had prior to watching the video. Then, while watching the video, they were to write what they learned on the inside of the circle. Once they were finished, it was to be turned in.

Now, while this is a great idea to keep the students working while the video is playing, it didn't seem to work all that well with this particular class. Several of the students fell asleep, while others had that blank stare on their face that I'm sure all of us know all too well. That stare that indicates that the student is paying attention, but all of the information is going in one ear and out the other.

I'm not sure if it would help or not, but one thing that I noticed was that Mrs. Ellis stayed seated at her desk watching the video with the class and Mrs. Paxton sat at the back of the classroom working on something of her own. Neither of them checked on the students to make sure they were working the entire class period. At one point, I saw about a third of the class appeared to be asleep, but neither of them made any effort to wake them. Maybe I'm just over-thinking all of this, but if it were my class, I think I would have gently tapped or shook the students that appeared to be asleep. Or is that going too far? They are seniors in high school, so should they be independent enough to take care of themselves?

While the videos were very informative, I'm not sure it was the best way to introduce the book to the class. Perhaps shorter clips would have worked better? Any thoughts or ideas on this? I feel like I'm rambling at this point.