What encoding strategies do you (or your students) advocate for the preclass work?

Team-Based Learning
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I use video lectures for the preclass work assignments so there is some amount of dual coding going on. However, I have not really optimized the preclass work and have depended mostly on the retrieval practice in the iRAT and tRAT for building the knowledge base. I was wondering if anyone has best practices to share, particularly with managing cognitive load in the preclass work.

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Hi @JayPascual
I have struggled for several years to get prework done.
Spontaneously, just 15-25% of students did it.
I switched to interactive videos including :

  • easy questions to verify attention,
  • open answer spaces to introduce their own questions along the video
  • :boom: activating “prevent skipping” function in order to assure they watch the whole video
    Regarding cognitive load, in my experience it has to be low-medium: video length is maximum 30 mn, otherwise students get angry.
    I think this prework has to introduce main concepts, and we wil later reinforce them during the exercises.
    In my opinion, Edpuzzle is a great tool to create educational videos and learning analytics eases teachers´ work.
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Hi @JayPascual You can refer to our blog post on managing cognitive load:
3 Best Practices to Reduce Cognitive Load during the Readiness Assurance Process

@znoel Are there any particular best practices or strategies that you would recommend?

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Will try EdPuzzle @david.prandi . I think it is a great idea. Thanks for sharing!

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The suggestions by @JayPascual are excellent examples of ways to manage cognitive load. Some easy ways to help manage cognitive load:

  • Segmentation (break content up into smaller, more consumable segments )
  • Signaling (highlight/signal key points that you want students to take from the pre-class content. Alternatively, provide them with a list of learning questions to help guide their focus & attention)
  • If you’re using pre-recorded lectures with PowerPoint, there are a host of cognitive load principles that can be applied. Here’s an infographic of some common ones. [Processing: Principles of Multimedia Learning_Infographic.jpg…]

The other often forgotten piece of this is how much time you build for students to spend on the pre-class content. In other words, cognitive load is contingent upon time constraints and the finite capacity of working memory. Allowing more time/space to spend on pre-class content eases the cognitive burden. So what is “optimal” or “ideal” for pre-class work is at least partially dependent on how much time you build into your course for students to complete pre-class work.

-Zac Noel