Accessible Materials
Benefits of providing lecture content in advance
Download a copy of the Lecture Materials in Advance_Transcript
In the video, students explained that having lecture content in advance helped them with knowing the workload for the week, to prepare before a lecture and to have the accessible content to hand for that lecture. Our research showed that there were also many more benefits identified by students. We have listed them below:
- Concentration: Students can concentrate on the content of the lecture, rather than making notes.
- Confidence: Students will be more confident as they will have some familiarity with the content being presented.
- Spelling: Some students struggle to spell when they are note-taking in live lectures. If words that are difficult to spell are supplied in advance in the lecture content, note-taking can be easier.
- Anxiety: Students will be less anxious as they will have less fear of missing out on key information.
- Memory: If students can look at materials before the lecture, then have concepts repeated during the live session, this will help with information retention.
- Terminology and unfamiliar language: Students have the opportunity to look up terminology or any language that they are not familiar with before the lecture.
- Linking Ideas: Students can check notes from previous lectures, and link these more effectively to the current content.
For your next in-person or online lecture, why not think about providing the lecture content in advance? It could allow you to take more of a flipped-classroom approach to the lecture.
Creating consistent layouts on Canvas
Download a copy of the Consistency On Canvas_Transcript
In this video, we focus on how to organise content in Canvas to best suit the needs of our diverse student population. Students repeatedly emphasised how helpful they found it if courses were consistently organised.
One of the lecturers explained how she preferred to organise her content so that it was easy for her students to easily find everything they needed. Can you guess how she organised her content?
Creating clear, concise and accessible emails
Checklist:
- Use a clear and concise title
- Avoid long, dense paragraphs. Break up content into chunks with headings, subheadings and bullet points.
- Use short, simple sentences in a direct style.
- Explain technical language and abbreviations.
- Use the active rather than passive voice.
- Make sure instructions are clear.