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Instructional Materials

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Lecturing is another common method for delivering course content in person or online, during synchronous or asynchronous sessions. However, research shows that students lose attention after 10-15 minutes (Richardson, 2010), at most.
 

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  • “Chunk It”
    • Break your lecture into key concepts/topics and create lectures (live or recorded) of no more than 10 minutes
  • Review your lecture slides/notes, and ask:
    • Do I need to say all of this? 
    • Can students read or watch a video about some of it instead? 
  • Create a cycle of listening and doing
    • After each ‘chunk’ of new material, give students an opportunity to participate in a learning activity: discussion, Q&A, debate, reflection, small-group assignment, practice examples/problems, etc. 
  • Use illustrations and real-life examples
    • Concepts are better understood and ‘stick’ when applied to a real-life situation
    • Illustrate concepts with actual images/videos and examples
  • Be personable and use humor
    • Be yourself and allow your personality (and some humor!) to shine through while you are lecturing 
    • It’s okay to make mistakes; your video lectures don’t need to be polished Hollywood productions
  • Take a “less is more” approach on the slides
    • Use minimal text on your presentation slides and enhance with photos, images, etc.
    • Use simple, sans-serif fonts and contrasting colors, so your text is easily readable

A note on instructor notes

Instructors often have notes and slide decks that accompany their lectures. Providing copies of these supplemental notes to students is not only helpful to students with a documented disability—but also to all other students, especially those who are more visual learners or who could not attend the live lecture due to a variety of circumstances. 

Providing students with these notes is not “doing the work for them” but rather providing them with another quality, reliable resource to help them learn and succeed. This practice also aligns with the principles of Universal Design for Learning. 

Technology for Lectures

Open Education Resources

Open Educational Resources are educational materials and tools offered freely for anyone to use and—under some licenses—to re-mix, improve and redistribute. They include:

  • Learning content: full courses and modules, textbooks, lectures/ tutorials, collections, and journals.
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  • Tools: software to support the creation, delivery and improvement of open learning content 
  • Implementation resources: Intellectual property licenses to promote open publishing of materials, design-principles, and localization of content.

OER are created by individual educators and institutions that seek to provide an alternative to the rising costs of education—and the create a more participatory, collaborative and global approach to teaching and learning.

APPLY to your course

Review your

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course, asking yourself: 

  • Do I have a clearly articulated guidelines for how to reach me and when to expect a response? 
  • What is my plan for providing guidance and feedback on students’ work (what formative assessments, graded or nongraded do I have in place)? 
  • Are my instructional materials as engaging and updated as possible?
  • What learning activities do I have planned? How can I get involved?

Review resources in each area and revise accordingly:

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References & Resources

Dixson, M. D. (2010). Creating effective student engagement in online courses: What do students find engaging? Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 1-13.

Fiock, H. & Garcia, H. (2019, November 11). How to Give Your Students Better Feedback with Technology. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T, & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2, 87–105. 

Nicol, D., Thomson, A., & Breslin, C. (2014). Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(1), 102-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.795518

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  • variety of instructional materials?
  • Do my materials align with course learning objectives and assessments? 
  • How can I ‘chunk’ my lectures into shorter, topical 10 min segments?
  • Are my slides too text-heavy? Can I adjust them to make them more captivating?
  • Where and how can I incorporate OER and e-reserves?
  • Are all of my materials accessible? Where and how do I need to make changes?
  • Do I provide students with a chance to do and engage with new content as it’s presented? 

Based on your decisions on delivering lecture and content: 

References & Resources

The Council of Chief State School Officers. 2016, December 4. “What is OER?” William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. 

Elder, A.K. & Katz, S. 2020. “Evaluating OER.” The OER Starter Kit Workbook. Manifold Scholarship. 

Lochiatto, G. 2009, January 8. “How to Select the Right Textbook for an Online Course.” 

Medel, P., & Pournaghshband, V. (2017). Eliminating gender bias in computer science education materials. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE technical symposium on computer science education (pp. 411-416).

O'Keefe, L., Rafferty, J., Gunder, A., & Vignare, K. (2020). Delivering High-Quality Instruction Online in Response to COVID-19: Faculty Playbook. Online Learning Consortium.

Richardson, H. “Students only have ‘10-minute attention span’.” News.bbc.co.uk. January, 2010. 

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 

Zimmerman, J. & Steinke, G. 2015. “Teaching Tip: Designing Online Lectures and Recorded Presentations.” College of Continuing and Professional Studies. University of Minnesota.