Abstract: The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the ways in which preservice teachers learned from and engaged with professor-authored YouTube videos in a literacy course. Preservice teachers were enrolled in a literacy methods course for their initial elementary teaching certification which the first author taught in both Spring 2009 and Fall, 2009. Data included ten weeks of blog posts, across two semesters with 126 preservice teachers in total. Data were examined through constant-comparative method and discourse analysis to look for larger trends and themes across the written data so we could learn in which ways the students engaged with the videos. Findings could be used to develop instructors’ use professor-authored videos to supplement instruction in both face-to-face and online or hybrid learning environments. The ways in which students engage with the videos on a voluntary basis offersbasis offers insight into the best uses of these videos in instructional content and design.