Traditional academic lectures have long been criticized as providing a passive learning environment to students. Often, they do not capture the audience's attention, resulting in learners being distracted or bored and thereby reducing their learning efficacy. Consequently, they are being abandoned by many schools and universities as an educational…

While common, computer presentations given during classroom lectures do not always improve learning effects; thus, this study incorporated three elements into technology-assisted classroom lectures: emphasis, augmentation, and integration. These three elements cannot be implemented simultaneously when using PowerPoint (PPT) presentations during…

Lectures containing information presented in verbal and visual form are widely used in educational settings. To date, little is known about how the visual display in a video lecture influences immediate and delayed recall. In two experiments, participants listened to a pre-recorded lecture while viewing an animated concept map, sequential listing…

Video is an increasingly important resource in higher education. A key limitation of lecture video is that it is fundamentally a sequential information stream. Quickly accessing the content aligned with specific learning objectives in a video recording of a classroom lecture is challenging. Recent research has enabled automatic reorganization of a…

Diversifying higher education curricula has been called for as one way to reduce racial inequalities in higher education. This study makes an original contribution by focusing on images of people in lecture slides. We explored how people of colour versus white individuals were portrayed in images (n = 250) used in lecture slides in four first-year…

Instructors' speech and gestures are tightly integrated. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms by which different types of gestures affect learning. We conducted two experiments on the effects of gestures in video lectures that included an instructor and slides, with English vocabulary as the topic. In Experiment 1, we manipulated…

Most college students take lecture notes to prepare for tests. With technology development, more students are recording notes on laptops rather than writing them longhand. Previous studies comparing laptop and longhand note taking mediums yielded mixed results, highlighting the need to identify influencing factors. The present study investigated a…

The goal of this research was to test the effectiveness of a new science curriculum focused on increasing awareness and knowledge of microplastic pollution in middle school students. The curriculum utilized three teaching methods including lectures, object-mediated learning, and peer collaboration to enhance student engagement and learning. The 84…

In this paper, we describe an idea for mathematics lectures that involves using digital tools for first-year university students. Materials in the Moodle course include live broadcasts, lecture recordings, Moodle tests, sample solutions and videos. The aim of the paper is to find out from students' feedback which digital tools help them understand…

The educational benefit of the traditional didactic lecture to learners in Higher Education is hotly debated. Given increasing student numbers, existing technical set ups and many logistical concerns, lectures remain the norm in many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). In this personal view piece, we discuss the benefits, opportunities, and…

This study tested the interaction effect of the instructor's eye gaze (direct gaze vs. averted gaze) and facial expression (happy face vs. neutral face) on students' attention and learning performance in slide-based video lectures. University students (N = 120) participated in the experiment in a laboratory setting. The results of ANOVAs showed…

The COVID-19 pandemic brought monumental changes to life around the world, including drastic changes to how traditional face-to-face (F2F) American university courses have been conducted. In Spring 2020, institutions of higher education had to move courses fully online (if they were mid-term) or in some cases end a term of F2F only to return from…

This report offers technical guidance and encouragement for any instructor or department looking to produce valuable, high-quality Lightboard teaching videos under space and budget constraints. Lightboards were introduced in a chemical education setting around 2015 as a presentation setup that allowed the presenter to speak face-to-face to their…

With the increase in online course use (Allen & Seaman, 2017), there is an increasing need to determine the most effective (i.e., the most conducive for learning) way to present lectures online (e.g., video lectures). Lecture graphics that are interesting but extraneous to the content (e.g., a celebrity), have been shown to impair…

Lecture capture is popular within Higher Education, but previous research suggests that students do not always optimally select content to review, nor do they make the most of specific functions. In the current study conducted in the 2019/20 academic year, we used a repeated-measures crossover design to establish the effects of transcripts with…