Is it more effective to take a 10-minute break halfway through a 90-minute lecture or a 90-second break every 10 minutes? Researchers investigated the effect of the timing of these breaks on learners in an undergraduate psychology course and have some interesting findings:
Chew & Cerbin propose a research-based framework of nine interacting cognitive challenges that teachers must address in order to promote “optimal learning” rather than merely acceptable performance. They emphasize that teaching is not just delivering content but creating the conditions in which students learn. Each of the nine challenges represents a characteristic of how students think, learn, or struggle — the idea being that failure to address any one of these can undermine learning. The authors describe each challenge, provide examples, and suggest instructional strategies for mitigation.
This is a piece of my own research I conducted with Teri St. Pierre and others that is very relevant to designing YourPace courses. To understand the experience of academically high achieving working mothers in distance education, we interviewed and … Read More