By Bailey Grams
In today’s technology-centered world, capturing students’ attention in the classroom has become more difficult than ever. Dedicated instructors work hard every day to get to know their students, understand their interests, and find ways to keep them engaged. At Career+ Pathways™, we provide those dedicated teachers with high-quality materials that make student engagement easier. We design our microcredential course materials with both teachers and students in mind so that whether they are implemented asynchronously or synchronously, students stay involved and learn effectively.
Creating Engaging Materials
For years, academic researchers have studied student attention spans and explored how to keep learners engaged across different educational settings. Studies have shown that student attention waxes and wanes throughout a presentation, with moments of inattention growing more frequent as time goes on. Researchers have observed this both in person and during video lectures. To best capitalize on those moments of attention and keep focus on the lesson, researchers have found that intermittent quizzes or class discussions throughout a lecture can help to bring students’ minds back to the lesson at hand.
The Career+ Pathways™ microcredential courses were created with this structure in mind. Any student taking our courses in a self-paced, online environment will find that the lessons are interspersed with reflection questions and interactive activities where students can pause from learning new information to test their understanding of the material so far. These moments allow them to pause, test their understanding, and re-engage with the material.
In addition, we have also added additional visual interest to the course materials by interspersing video content throughout the text. Many studies show that videos can serve as effective educational tools, but only if designed with engagement in mind. A study conducted by professors from MIT and edX determined that, among other things, educational videos have the most success if they are under six minutes and hold more visual content than simply showing presentation slides ( Guo, et al.).
For our microcredential courses, we developed short, visually appealing videos specifically to match these recommendations. Each module of these courses has one or two videos, under 5 minutes, that provide valuable information related to the content of the module. By alternating between written information and video information, our modules hope to keep students absorbed in the material.
Creating Easily Adoptable Materials
Our materials, however, weren’t just developed for students to complete on their own. They were created to be versatile and adaptable so that they could be taught either asynchronously or synchronously. So, how do we provide these materials so that enthusiastic teachers can best implement them in their classrooms?
In order to make integration as seamless as possible, we provide all teachers utilizing our microcredentials with an assortment of teacher resources that they can employ during their lesson. These resources include presentation slides that cover all of the material included in the written lesson. These slides also include the short videos that are interspersed throughout the lesson.
In addition, we provide a selection of open-ended class discussion questions that teachers can ask at the beginning of the lesson or throughout the lecture to check in with students and refresh their attention. The teacher resources also include additional activities that teachers can make use of at the end of the lesson to lock in the learning that students have been doing. These activities will encourage students to interact with both the material and each other. They often involve students getting up and moving around the room so that they can feel present and immersed in the topics at hand. The activities we provide are developed specifically to be easy to implement without asking the teachers to provide their own additional materials or do excessive preparation.
Value of Learning
At Career+ Pathways™, we create educational materials that deliver valuable, career-focused learning to middle and high school students. By utilizing best practices in lesson planning and instructional design, we hope to keep their attention as long as possible so that all students participating in our programs are able to benefit from this future-focused instruction. At the end of their time in high school, we want all students who participated in Career+ Pathways™ programs to have a plan for their future and feel well prepared for their next step, whether that’s enlistment, enrollment, or employment.
Bio
Bailey Grams is a senior instructional designer and an employer engagement specialist with Career+ Pathways™ . She has a background in English and communication studies and has been working with Skyepack as an instructional designer for over five years. She has also studied graphic design and uses that knowledge to help guide her development of new materials for students and teachers. Outside of work, she can be found reading for her book club, learning a new craft, or playing board games with friends.
References
Bunce, D.M., Elizabeth A. Flens, and Kelly Y. Neiles (Oct. 2010). How Long Can Students Pay Attention in Class? A Study of Student Attention Decline Using Clickers. ACS Publications. pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed100409p.
Guo, P.J., Juho Kim, and Rob Rubin (Mar. 2014). How Video Affects Student Engagement: An Empirical Study of MOOC Videos. Usable Programming Group. up.csail.mit.edu/other-pubs/las2014-pguo-engagement.pdf.
Schacter, D.L., and K.K. Szpunar (Feb. 2015). Enhancing Attention and Memory During Video-Recorded Lectures. American Psychological Association. apa.org/pubs/journals/features/stl-0000011.pdf.
