In an article titled Rockin’ the Classroom: Using Music Videos to Teach Content, Mr. Wood explains the difficulty of engaging a student’s attention in a classroom, and how to overcome that problem.
Music naturally interests children, and researchers tested the effects of two different kinds of music-induced learning on 1,000 students. The first was a song with the learning content included in the lyrics and those lyrics shown on the screen. The second version was a music video-style presentation that had the content-oriented lyrics, but the video displayed material related to the content as opposed to just the words.
Both versions resulted in better student test scores, but the version with the lyrics shown on the screen resulted in higher initial test scores, while the music video-type resulted in better long-term retention.