Improve Online Lectures
A page within CATL Teaching Improvement Guide
This guide focuses on how instructors can support student learning in their online lectures. Instructors can help students:
- focus and reduce cognitive load
- take and use notes more effectively
- use self-explanation
- use self-testing
- take advantage of spaced practice
5 Ways to Support Learning in Online Lectures
Click on each strategy to view student survey highlights, teaching strategies, and resources for faculty and students.
5 Ways to Support Learning in Online Lectures
Students learn more effectively when they sustain attention on the task at hand and ignore irrelevant information and distractions.
Student Survey Highlights*
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Teaching Strategies
Losing focus
- Segment lectures
- Ask students to respond to questions or problems
- Incorporate polls to check for understanding
Divided attention
- Assess the extent of digital multitasking in class
- Adopt a policy for limiting phone use in class
- Promote the idea that multitasking makes learning harder and is detrimental to grades (there is no advantage to multitasking)
Cognitive overload
- Self-assess your teaching habits and practices that may increase unnecessary cognitive load. See Improving Learning by Reducing Unnecessary Mental Load
Student & Instructor Resources
Students learn more effectively when their class notes create a structure that organizes key concepts.
Student Survey Highlights*
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Teaching Strategies
- Provide skeletal outlines for lecture classes
- Encourage students to use notes to self-test for exams
Student & Instructor Resources
Students learn more effectively when they explain new information to themselves by establishing connections among ideas which expands their understanding of the information.
Student Survey Highlights*
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Teaching Strategies
- In class put students in situations in which they explain material to one another, e.g., use think-pair-share, polls, clicker questions
- Use online reading/preparation quizzes in which students explain concepts from reading assignments
Student & Instructor Resources
- For students: Self-Explanation Tip Sheet
- For instructors: Instructor Guidelines for Using Explanation
Students learn more effectively when they recall information from memory because they create new associations and connections with the material making it easier to recall in the future.
Student Survey Highlights*
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Teaching Strategies
- Use low stakes practice quizzes, polls, and clicker questions
- Give students practice questions for reading assignments
Student & Instructor Resources
- For students: Self-Testing Tip Sheet
- For instructors: Instructor Guidelines for Using Retrieval Practice
Students learn more effectively when they study material multiple times with lag time between study sessions.
Student Survey Highlights*
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Teaching Strategies
- Require students to make a spaced practice study schedule
- Build cumulative practice quizzes throughout the course
Student & Instructor Resources
- For students: Spaced practice
- For instructors: Instructor Guidelines for Using Spaced Practice
ADVICE FROM STUDENTS
Students were asked to make recommendations for instructors to make learning more effective in online lectures. Here are a few responses (they do not necessarily represent the opinions of the majority of survey respondents):
- "Understand that our attention spans are already limited and adding in the flexibility and loss of accountability that comes with online (especially recorded) lectures can make learning a lot harder."
- "[Use] short, concise videos, especially with note hand-outs, practice problems, or some sort of review that ties back to the material."
- "I would recommend that other instructors implement quizzes or other participation activities to make lectures more effective."
- "To make online lectures more effective, instructors could include participation questions that go along with the lectures, along with slide notes. This helps to make sure that the student is engaging with the lectures, and makes for easier note taking."
*About the Online Lecture Student Survey
The Online Lecture Survey consists of 67 items to assess students’ strategies and habits related to learning from online lectures in their courses (not in a specific course). The survey was administered Fall 2020 in Psychology 100, which had a total enrollment of 436 students. The survey was completed by 165 students who earned research participation credit in the course. UWL IRB approved the survey project. Participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and anonymous.
The response options for survey questions were Always, Often, Sometimes, Seldom, Never. To facilitate interpretation of the results we combined the responses, “Always” and “Often” into a single category, and combined the responses, “Seldom” and “Never” into a single category. The Always/Often category reflects a strong tendency to engage in the specific activity being assessed. The Seldom/Never category reflects tendency not to engage in the specific activity being assessed. For example, if 80% of the students report that they often or always take notes in lecture it means that these students tend to take notes extensively. Conversely, if 80% report they seldom or never take notes in lecture it would mean these students tend not to take notes.
Cerbin, W. and Kopp, B. (2021). Improve online lectures. In Teaching Improvement Guide. University of Wisconsin at La Crosse Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from https://www.uwlax.edu/catl/guides/teaching-improvement-guide/how-can-i-improve/online-lectures/.