Hello everyone! Today in EDCI 336, we discussed many educational theories surrounding memory such as multimedia learning theory, dual coding theory, and sketchnoting.

Multimedia Learning Theory discusses how when you teach with text and images together, that enhances a student’s learning a lot more than just with text or images alone.

Dual Coding Theory is where you “anchor” an image and talk about what is related to it: this technique moves ideas from short term memory to long term memory more effectively.

Sketchnoting is using the technique that uses the idea that text and visual representations help anchor things in memory with drawing rich visual representations of notes.

Photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash

There are many educational videos we may wish to use as teachers such as TeacherTube, Khan Academy, and YouTube. The following are pros and cons of using these kind of videos in the classroom:

  • Pros = visual representation of a subject, if you’re not strong at teaching a particular subject you can use it to supplement it, different way of teaching, something the students can come back to if they need more help another day, option to slow down and speed up the lesson
  • Cons = sometimes students don’t watch them or tune them out, can’t regulate what advertisements may pop up before the videos, videos aren’t always completely on topic

Flipping The Classroom

  • putting key ideas of the lesson in a video before class for students to watch so they are prepared
  • pros:  extra knowledge and students have a background in the subject when you teach it for the first time
  • cons: some people won’t do it and won’t be prepared

Educational Resources:

When should I make a new one myself?

  • if you know your students and know there is a certain way they learn best (make it for them)
  • local and unique things without resources – make it yourself!! indigenous localized learning vs math concepts

How should I evaluate a resource?

  • try it out a couple of times, experiment that it will work with that age group
  • need to have time to make them though!
  • check if its a trustworthy source

Today we also used Screencastify, a helpful app for screen recording. I like how this app allows you to mark up the screen and also be in a video in the corner of the screen recording. One setback of this google chrome extension was that it lagged, thus making my screen recording video choppy. All in all, today’s lesson provided me with a lot of insight into teaching materials and teaching styles that best promote memory and attention of students.