Module Reading Assignment (10 mins)

Big Takeaways on Lecture

Teaching Strategies

Quality Matters’ Standard 5.1 reminds us that all learning activities should support students achieving learning objectives. Some include lectures when they refer to learning activities while others do not and use the term teaching strategies for content delivery. Both terms are used in this course, and in most cases learning activities include content delivery. 

Lectures

In module 2, you were asked to describe learning activities, assessment, and assessment tools for one of your learning outcomes. You may have included video lectures as one of your teaching strategies/ learning activities. Here's a broad overview of best practices for video lectures.

1. Always start with the objective

2. Consider using a series of short videos instead of one long video

3. Use formative assessments and active learning techniques in between sections of the lecture

4. Post essential questions or takeaways for supplemental videos.

5. Assess prior knowledge.

6. Create an outline.

7. Make transitions obvious.

8. Encourage handwritten notes through lecture handout or graphic organizers (Research suggests longhand is better than typing notes).

9. Provide videos with closed captioning or recordings with transcripts.

10. Make sure that your videos sharing tool allows students to pause and rewind videos.

Creating Accessible Content

Creating Accessible Word Documents

There are six core elements to consider when creating accessible documents. The University of Minnesota provides detailed descriptions of each of these elements. Click on any of the links below to learn more about a particular element.

• Headings and document structure
• Hyperlinks
• Video captions
• Bullets and numbered lists
• Color and contrast
• Image alt-text

See the video below on one of the most important elements, headings.

Creating Accessible PDF Documents

If you are creating PDF documents in your course from Word or Google documents,  the good news is that accessible Word documents create accessible PDF documents. Follow the steps for creating accessible word documents above, and save the document as a PDF. 

Office Lens for Digitizing Printed Materials

Accessiblity Resources

Below is a list of resources. You don't need to review all of this resources-especially not now. Bookmark this page and return to it as needed.

• Universal Design for Learning Guidelines 

• Accessibility for Microsoft Word - WebAIM's tutorial describes how to use headings, add alt text, create links, and use Word’s Accessibility Checker to identify accessibility problems. It also explains how to convert Word to HTML.

• Create Accessible Word Documents - A series of short videos from Microsoft

• Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Microsoft Word 2011:Mac 

• Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations  - Microsoft

• PDF Accessibility  - from WebAIM

• Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions (Links to an external site.) - from WebAIM

• Flash Accessibility Issues - from WebAIM

Principles of Multimedia Learning

Dr. Richard Mayer is a well-known scholar in the field of educational psychology. His research explores the intersection between cognition, instruction, and technology.  In his book, Multimedia Learning, Mayer shares 12 principles for designing and organizing multimedia presentations. The principles have since become standard in thoughts and research around multimedia. 

Free Content Resources: Where to Get it

It is usually easier to adapt or use existing materials than it is to design your own materials from scratch. Here are some repositories that may provide media or course materials that you can use in your course.  These materials may be free for noncommercial use, but some require that you attribute the original source.  Always verify the use requirements for anything you find online.  Please bookmark this page so that you can return to it later.

Video