Helping students learn from lectures in asynchronous online courses

Helping Students Learn from Lectures in Asynchronous Online Courses

Pre-recorded lectures are a key feature of online courses, and creating these lectures may initially seem straightforward. Experienced in-person instructors may assume that when they are planning to teach an online course, they can simply record the lectures they would typically give in class, post them to Brightspace, and ask students to watch. This approach, however, is not likely to be effective for a variety of reasons.

First, if students don’t understand why they should pay attention, what they should do while they are listening, or how they will use what they are listening to, they are unlikely to learn much from a lecture. Second, when we lecture in in-person classes, we tend to give students opportunities to ask us clarifying questions or to signal their understanding. This kind of “in the moment” interaction isn’t possible in asynchronous courses, which means that students will be tempted to disengage if they become confused. Third, a full class-length lecture is unlikely to sustain students’ attention. Even advanced adult learners will struggle to fully attend to a class-length lecture and learn from it. Finally, when recorded lectures are too long, it will be difficult for students to revisit and review specific areas of confusion.

All these concerns may lead you to think that lectures don’t belong in an online course. That isn’t necessarily the case; in fact, lectures can be vital parts of a good course and effective tools to support students’ learning. However, it’s important to make sure that lectures are well-integrated into the course, used in strategic ways, and implemented with specific learning purposes in mind. They also need to be embedded in a structure that will help students understand why and how to listen. If we want to ensure that online lectures support students’ learning, we need to guide them through not only the content of the lecture, but also through the development of their thinking about the content.

This resource will outline five key strategies to help you plan and implement lectures that will be engaging for students and will lead to learning in your online course.

Strategy #1: Design lectures with student attention in mind

Whether in a classroom or online, students who are primarily listening for long (or even relatively short!) periods of time can quickly become passive and are easily distracted. In fact, research suggests that students’ attention quickly cycles during lectures: one study shows that during a 12-minute segment, about half of all students reported lapses in attention at the 2-minute, 5-minute, and 10-minute marks (Bunce, 2010). Let’s take a moment to make sense of how students may struggle to attend to lectures in ways that we, as experts, don’t.

When you listen to a lecture in your field, it’s likely that your attention span is quite a bit longer than the times indicated in the study we just referenced. This is because you are probably quite active while you are listening: you are formulating questions, making connections across big ideas in the lecture, considering how the content of the lecture confirms or challenges your current thinking, and planning for how you can use what you are learning. Students, who are less expert in our fields, do not automatically do all this cognitive work when they are listening to a lecture.

The good news is that learning from and using lectures is a cognitive skill set that can be developed. When we provide structure to guide students through our online lectures, we can help them build the skills that will help them work with lectures in more expert ways. The remaining strategies discussed here will give you ideas for helping students navigate lectures in your online course and, ideally, become better at learning from lectures in other contexts as well.

Strategy #2: Make simple, well-structured student work a part of online lectures

Having students do guided work helps them understand how to be active, not passive, when listening to lectures. If we want to ensure that students actively engage, it’s helpful to think about the kinds of work they can do before and after they listen to recorded lectures. Note that there are several examples of work students can do with lectures at the end of this article.

Having students do work before they listen to a lecture helps them activate their current understanding and prepares them to make connections between what they think now and what they will learn. For example, you might ask them to respond to a challenging problem or question that is related to the concepts or processes your lecture will explain. One way to do this is by having students submit a short auto-graded quiz before they can access the lecture. Because they have made an initial attempt at the problem, they will be listening to the lecture more attentively, with an eye toward seeing if their current understanding is sufficient or requires adjustment.

Having students do work after they listen to a lectureprepares them to use and reflect on their new thinking. For example, you might ask them to revisit the problem or question they worked on before the lecture and revise their answer. Or you could give them a related question or problem that requires them to use ideas from the lecture. Alternately, you might prompt them to make some notes about how they will use what they learned from the lecture to do the work of an upcoming assignment.

While it is ideal to have students do work both before and after a lecture, the good news is that they will benefit from doing work at either stage. It is important to require students to do this work by having some kind of small assignment attached to it: if you merely suggest that students do this work, many won’t.

Strategy #3: Make sure that lectures are focused and short, ideally no more than 15 minutes each

Shorter lectures are more effective for several reasons. First, shorter segments of lecture make it easier for students to pause between recordings and do the kind of work described above. If you want students to learn from lectures, having students take time to do this work is essential. Second, when we chunk content into individual lectures that focus on a single topic, concept, or question, we can help students focus their attention. This also makes it easier for students to revisit and/or review specific concepts that are challenging to them because they don’t have to sift through lengthy segments to locate the explanations. Finally, from a practical standpoint, recording shorter lecture segments is easier for faculty: it requires less stamina and makes it easier to start over when you make mistakes. Also, if new developments in your field require you to make adjustments, it’s easier to re-record a 10-minute lecture than a 50-minute one.

Strategy #4: Use lectures as opportunities for interaction—not just between students and the content, but also between you and students

In a face-to-face classroom, we can move around the room as we lecture, and we often create a feeling of interaction when we throw out a question to the class, respond to students’ body language, or invite their questions. This “real-time” interactive feeling can get lost in the online environment if we don’t plan carefully for how students will use lectures.

When we have students do the kind of work with lectures that is described above, we create opportunities for them to engage both with their own developing thinking and with us. This means that their questions are more likely to surface and they will be more likely to reach out to you for support. While you can’t give them “in the moment” answers like you would in an in-person course, there are other mechanisms you can use to respond to their attempts at doing work with lectures. You can invite them to reach out to you directly by email with questions. You might also have them post questions to an “ask a question” discussion forum where you or even other students might respond.

In addition to responding to questions, it’s important to find mechanisms for giving students small amounts of targeted feedback on the work they do with lectures. The thought of giving feedback on such frequent work can be intimidating, but there are ways to do this without getting overwhelmed. For example, you can put lecture-based questions into a short auto-graded quiz in Brightspace so that students get quick feedback without you having to review all their individual work. You can also review students’ lecture-based work and post a short course announcement in which you address the two most important points of confusion for the class as a whole. This allows you to give feedback to students without having to address each student’s work individually, and it creates additional chances for you to interact with students.

The important thing is to make sure that lectures aren’t just a communication from you (or another speaker) to students, but instead that students feel invited into a conversation about the content.

Strategy #5: Use lectures with a clear learning purpose in mind.

Short, focused lectures can be an important part of an online course. However, we need to think carefully about when we should use them to support students’ learning. When you are deciding where lectures belong in your course, it’s important to think about the things that lectures can do best.

Use short lectures when you have relevant personal or professional experience to add. You might have an example from your own research, your work in the field, or even from your own life that can illustrate a concept or bring a topic to life. This can be a particularly important way of establishing teaching presence in an online course because it allows you to show students a bit of who you are and to convey some of your excitement about what you are teaching.

Short lectures also work well when students need information that isn’t available to them from other sources—or that isn’t available in a helpful form. For example, there might be a concept that isn’t explained well in the textbook you are using for the course. If that’s the case, provide a short lecture for students rather than assigning that section of the textbook as reading. Also, it’s possible that there’s a new, cutting-edge idea in your field that you would like students to begin working with but that isn’t included in the course materials you’ve provided. In this case, you might provide a short lecture on that new development, accompanied with questions or problems that require students to work with the implications of it.

Lectures can do a good job of synthesizing or summarizing information from multiple sources. For example, there may be multiple perspectives about a big question in your discipline, and you don’t want students to have to read several chapters or articles to grasp them. A well-organized, short lecture can summarize the differing viewpoints and contextualize the controversy.

Finally, lectures can be useful to provide clarity on particular points of confusion. For example, if you know that students are likely to struggle with a major concept in your course or if you are seeing evidence of specific challenges in their work, a short explanatory lecture accompanied by structured work can help students work through their confusion and gain a firmer understanding of the concept.

Below, you will find examples of simple activities you can include in your online course to help students do work with lecture content.

Examples of Learning Activities that Make Online Lectures More Engaging

If we want to ensure that online lectures support students’ learning, we need to guide them through not just the content of the lecture, but also through the development of their thinking about the content. The four activities presented here will assist you in providing helpful structure for students so that they can be active, not passive, while listening to lectures in your online course.

Note that these activities are presented as sequences, with students doing work before and after lectures. This is ideal but may not always be possible. Having students do work at one point only (before or after listening to lectures) will still yield benefits in most cases. Regardless of the structure you choose, remember that students will benefit most if you require them to do this work. If they see it as optional, many will choose not to do it. You may opt to grade these activities for completion only and provide feedback to the entire class rather than to individual students. Reviewing students’ work on these activities will give you helpful feedback about common confusions so that you can address them early on.

Activity 1: Minute paper

This simple strategy helps students identify and articulate the most important ideas from lectures and connect those ideas to their prior thinking.

Before students watch/listen to a lecture

Have them write a response to this question: This lecture is about [give a general overview of the topic, concept, theory, process, etc.]. What is the most important thing I have learned so far in this class about [lecture topic]?

These responses can be submitted as a short assignment or quiz in Brightspace. Require students to submit their responses before they can view the lecture by setting a release condition in Brightspace.

After students have watched/listened to a lecture

Have them reflect on what they learned by writing a response to these questions:

What is the most important thing I learned from this lecture?
{1a – If they did pre-lecture work} How did the ideas in this lecture change or add to what I already knew about [topics]?
How will I use what I’ve learned to help me on the upcoming class assignment/test/project?

These responses can be submitted as a short assignment or quiz in Brightspace. Take time to review these assignments and look for informative patterns. Consider responding to students by posting a course announcement.

This activity is adapted from Angelo & Cross (1992).

Activity 2: Muddiest point

This strategy helps students articulate initial points of confusion and trace their thinking as their understanding changes.

Before students watch/listen to a lecture

Have them write in response to the following prompt: This lecture is about [give a general overview of the topic, concept, theory, process, etc.]. What do I currently find most confusing about [topic]? What questions do I have about [topic]?

After students have watched/listened to a lecture

Have them reflect on what they learned by writing a response to these questions:

After listening to this lecture, what is still confusing or unclear to me about [topic]?
What previous confusions did this lecture clear up for me?

This activity is adapted from Angelo & Cross (1992).

Activity 3: K-W-L Chart

This strategy helps students assess their current understanding of the content that will be covered in a lecture, determine what they want to know, and reflect on what they learn during the lecture.

Before students watch/listen to a lecture

Give them access to a copy of a chart that looks like this:

Topic/Concept	K: What you know	W: What you want to know	l: What you Learned

Give students the list of topics or concepts that will appear in the lecture and have them fill out the K and W columns for each concept, noting what they know and what they want to know. Note that you can have students keep a chart across multiple short lectures.

These responses can be submitted as a short assignment in Brightspace. Require students to submit their responses before they can view the lecture by setting a release condition in Brightspace.

After students have watched/listened to a lecture

Have them make notes in the L column about what they learned from listening to the lecture and submit their completed chart.

These responses can be submitted as a short assignment in Brightspace. Take time to review these assignments and look for informative patterns. Consider responding to students by posting a course announcement.

This activity is adapted from Rice (2018).

Activity 4: Making predictions

This strategy prepares students to actively listen to lecture and use and integrate new information as they are learning it. Note: This strategy requires students to do work both before and after listening to a lecture.

Before students watch/listen to a lecture

Give them a mini-case (3-5 sentences) describing a problem that experts in your field would use the key concepts in the lecture to solve. Have them predict how they think the problem will be resolved and explain their prediction using their current understanding of the relevant concepts. Alternately, you might describe the parameters of a study in your field and have them predict what they think the findings of that study may be using their current understanding.

These responses can be submitted in a few different ways:

Students submit a short assignment in Brightspace;
Students take a quiz in Brightspace (note that you can format predictions as multiple choice or true/false); or
Students post to a discussion. It can be interesting for students to compare their predictions to those of other students. Just make sure if you do this that they have to submit their own post before they can see other students’ posts.

Regardless of the tool you use, require students to submit their responses before they can view the lecture by setting a release condition in Brightspace.

After students have watched/listened to a lecture

Ask students to revisit their initial predictions and write a response to these prompts:

Given what you learned from the lecture, how would you revise your initial prediction about the case?
Where was your initial thinking correct?
Where was your initial thinking flawed?

For information about the importance of prediction for learning, see Lang (2021).

Resources about Using Lectures in Online Courses

Angelo, T.A. and Cross, K.P. (1992). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass.

Lang, J. (2021). Small Teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning (2^nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Rice, G.T. (2018). Hitting pause: 65 lecture breaks to refresh and reinforce learning. Stylus.