The top of the second page has recommendations for the types of videos that work best, including a recommendation that videos should be shorter than six minutes in length. This study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Stout asked students about the impact videos have on their learning. It appears that videos as a part of online courses are here to stay and that tailoring them to the right length to engage students is an important consideration in providing an overall quality experience.
The solution is to provide students with a framework for each lecture, so that they can direct their attention to the most important information. One way to do this is to prepare a study guide for your course that describes each lecture's objectives, key concepts, and questions to consider Schneider, p.
A handout with the lecture's major points will prepare students to listen and look for the central elements of the lecture. Skeletal lecture handouts, with room for students' notes, can also help students organize what they hear and see, and may be more effective than providing students with your full lecture notes Kiewra, , p.
As you prepare your lecture outlines, aim for three to five main points in each lecture, with clear links between each lecture topic and your main points. You can also ask students to answer conceptual questions as they take notes during lecture.
Each part of a lecture can be preceded by a high-level question that the upcoming information can answer. This encourages students to interpret and organize lecture content according to an important and useful conceptual framework. During lecture, be as explicit as possible about what students should focus on. Clearly introduce key concepts and definitions. Identify important themes as a way for students to sort through the content of the lecture.
Use verbal and visual cues to highlight major points, categories, and steps of an argument. You can also direct students' attention to the most important points by asking them to review or explain those points during class. All of these strategies will help create a framework for students, so that they can quickly and accurately identify and understand the core ideas in your lecture. Once we have students' attention, we need to consider how quickly students can process information.
Short-term memory requires time to process the sensory input we receive; students are not sponges and cannot immediately "absorb" new information. Give students short breaks throughout lecture to review their notes and ask questions. A short break that includes students' questions can also give the lecturer an opportunity to assess student understanding and adjust the remaining part of the lecture if needed.
You can also include a more formal activity or assignment after every minutes of presentation. For example, ask students to summarize or paraphrase the last few important points, either in their notes or with the person sitting nearest them. You can then review the points and move on to the next phase in the lecture.
Giving students and yourself a break has another advantage. The audience's attention in a lecture drops dramatically after ten minutes of listening Bligh, , p. Students can remember most of the first ten minutes, but very little from the middle part of the lecture. A short break will revitalize the audience's attention, and students will be much more likely to remember information from throughout the lecture.
A final consideration involves how lecturers present information. Lecturers are often encouraged to use a wide range of presentation materials, including audio, video, and written materials. While this can attract students' attention, it can also overload students' attention. A common example is when students are presented with an illustration that also includes a written explanation. Students may be unable to process the information quickly, because looking at the illustration and reading the text both place demands on the same sensory channel vision.
Mayer found that replacing the written explanation with an auditory narrative, which uses another sensory channel, is more effective. Another common way to overload attention is to give students two conflicting things to attend to at the same time say, a transparency on the overhead and a verbal narrative that does not directly relate to the overhead.
Students must figure out which sensory channel provides the essential information, and they may not always guess correctly. You can avoid cognitive overload by maintaining a reasonable pace in your presentation and by carefully coordinating your verbal instruction with any other media. Information becomes solidified in long-term memory when we have opportunities to retrieve, review, and reflect on that information.
As an instructor, you have two main opportunities to make sure this happens: 1 Give students time, during lecture, to review and apply ideas. Previously, we described how short breaks during a lecture can give students the opportunity to make sure they have correctly identified and recorded important information.
To go beyond this simple fact-checking, give students time in lecture to solve a problem or discuss an idea. You can post the problem or discussion question on a slide at the beginning of the lecture, so that students attend to the lecture with the anticipation of applying the information. You can have students tackle the problem or issue in pairs at the end of the lecture, or work alone and then vote on a solution or position.
You can also create a think-tank situation by inviting volunteers to talk through their thought processes as they try to solve the problem or respond to a question.
The full class can then discuss both the process and outcome of the thought experiment. Of course, your students' learning process does not end in the lecture hall. You provide a strong foundation for learning during class, but students typically are overwhelmed by other demands on their time and thoughts. Students rush from one class to the next, and spend time in extracurricular activities, athletics, jobs, and socializing. By the end of the day, any information that is not reviewed may not be accurately remembered.
We can increase students' learning by offering them the opportunity to review each lecture in a meaningful and timely way. It is not enough to hope that students will review their notes; create assignments that encourage or require it. Give students a problem that can only be solved using lecture material. Have students prepare a debate, a student panel, or a position paper on a subject related to lecture content Frederick, , p.
If an online discussion forum is part of the course, ask students to respond to questions related to the most recent lecture. By reviewing, interpreting, and applying lecture material, students are more likely to build lasting memories and develop higher-level thinking skills. Students are also more likely to remember information that relates to ideas or experiences they are already familiar with. You can capitalize on this phenomenon by using examples from student life, current events, or popular culture.
You can also ask students to generate their own examples from personal experience in class or as a written assignment.
Whenever possible, tell students how new information relates to previous lectures in your course. Show students how specific skills can be applied to real-world problems. Create class activities or assignments that ask students to fit new information into the overall themes of the course.
For example, have students compare two ideas, synthesize competing perspectives, or discuss the evolution of one theory to another. These insights explain why the minute-plus lecture format is more common in high school and college and why, in earlier grades, teachers often break up activities within a classroom period.
In addition to taking into account the shorter attention spans for younger learners, less lecturing gives teachers time to focus on aspects of learning other than acquisition of knowledge. When developed by experienced teachers, these segments are carefully choreographed to consider not just the content being taught, but the needs of each learner.
The benefit of shorter lectures is well understood by developers of online educational materials who have learned that students often click away or otherwise tune out while watching a recorded class.
The success of Khan Academy videos almost all of which are under 10 minutes served as a template for creating cutting-edge online-learning experiences, including massive open online courses.
Shorter lectures quickly replaced hour-long videos of sages performing on the stage as developers experimented with different techniques to make virtual lectures more expansive and intimate. While teachers working through the current crisis do not have access to production studios or even the ability to leave their homes, with or without a camera crew , thousands of museums and other institutions have made resources available for teachers to integrate into their online courses.
Instructors have also experimented with lecture formats that did away with podiums and blackboards. For instance, in the popular HarvardX MOOC The Ancient Greek Hero , professor Greg Nagy framed didactic portions of his course as conversations between himself and a handful of graduate students, creating the impression that you were not being lectured to, but instead eavesdropping on intimate discussions.
A teacher interested in mixing things up can experiment with formats by simply thinking about where they can point the camera, other than at their own face. Synthesizing effective methodologies used across educational sectors can offer a roadmap for instructors as they consider what to do with the lecture portion of their courses.
To get through it, we need to remember that we are united not through suffering, but through what we can learn from and do for one another.
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