Ask a Tech Teacher

APRIL 28, 2025

Moreover, virtual classrooms often utilize a variety of technological tools that enhance interactivity and collaboration. Another concern is the varying levels of access to technology. This change reflects both the advancements in technology and the increasing availability of information at their fingertips.

Hybrid Learning

Edsurge

JANUARY 31, 2023

Teaching is about attention — getting students to pay attention to the material, and to engage with new ideas so they can develop new skills and abilities. But getting and holding the attention of students has become more difficult since the pandemic, according to many college instructors around the country.

Attention

Edsurge

MAY 25, 2020

What’s the Use of Lectures? Let’s start with one of education’s most hallowed traditions: the lecture. In his 1971 book “ What’s the Use of Lectures? The author’s work did not discount the fact that there are inspirational teachers whose lectures are so compelling they can hold student attention for hours.

Lecturing

Faculty Focus

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Despite debate and disagreement about how to define and measure attention spans, numerous studies have put student attention spans in approximately the 10-minute range (Bradbury, 2016). Attention is a so-called gateway between information and learning and is compared to a spotlight on a large stage (Keller et al.,

Lecturing

Edsurge

DECEMBER 13, 2022

SAN MARCOS, Texas — As a digital media course got underway on a recent Wednesday at Texas State University, a trickle of students took their seats in one of the largest lecture theaters on campus. My goal in flying down to Texas State was to find out, what do college classes look and feel like now—especially in large lectures like this one?

Lecturing

Faculty Focus

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Despite debate and disagreement about how to define and measure attention spans, numerous studies have put student attention spans in approximately the 10-minute range (Bradbury, 2016). Attention is a so-called gateway between information and learning and is compared to a spotlight on a large stage (Keller et al.,

Lecturing

Catlin Tucker

JUNE 21, 2021

lecture, discussion, written responses), there are myriad barriers that may make it hard for students to access information and share their learning effectively. What might make it hard for a student to process information presented verbally in a lecture or mini-lesson? Taking time to identify barriers in our design work is critical.

Blended Learning

Edsurge

JUNE 16, 2023

There’s a news story in higher ed that’s not getting enough attention. The nation’s adjuncts are rising up. Just a few weeks ago at Rutgers University, for instance, adjuncts, grad students and others held a five-day strike over unequal treatment compared to other academic employees.

Attention

Catlin Tucker

MAY 11, 2021

We can indeed cover more ground when we present information in a traditional lecture format, but that doesn’t mean students understand the information. The class may include students with a hearing impairment, auditory processing disorder, or attention deficit disorder. Teachers want all students to be successful.

Blended Learning

Faculty Focus

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

It turns out that with each passing year, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to capture and hold a student’s attention and focus during my lessons. Our cognitive resources do, however, have a limit; therefore, we must always choose from the available resources that we can pay attention to.

Attention

eSchool News

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Over the last few decades, applied technology in the classroom has grown by leaps and bounds. Of course, there’s more to education technology than allowing computers in the classroom. What new technology is out there and being tested in the classroom? Both teachers and students who have health issues can safely attend class.

Learning Styles

Catlin Tucker

JUNE 18, 2023

” Challenges with Traditional Live Instruction Traditionally, educators disseminate information in real-time, relying on lectures or mini-lessons. Others worry that students may not have access to technology beyond the classroom or those who do have access may not watch instructional videos outside of class.

Lecturing

Ask a Tech Teacher

MAY 17, 2022

And when it comes to exam prep, there’s no reason you can’t use technology to make the process more engaging for your students. Technology can be a valuable tool for accomplishing this goal, and in this post, we’ll take a look at seven ways educators can use technology to help students prepare for exams.

Exams

Edsurge

OCTOBER 19, 2016

And, like Turkle, we are concerned that the predominant uses of technology in higher education—both in the workplace and the classroom—do not place human connections and conversations at their center. Higher education is deeply entrenched in face-to-face traditions that, by nature, situate technology as an add-on to in-person conversations.

Technology

Edsurge

JANUARY 14, 2021

As the pandemic has forced more teaching online, plenty of instructors have been trying to figure out the best way to keep students’ attention and interest with lecture videos or Zoom sessions. The face is a massive draw—it’s a magnet for attention,” Stull says. It’s almost like this symphony that the instructor is the heart of.”

Instructors

EdTech Magazine

AUGUST 22, 2019

AR/VR in K–12: Schools Use Immersive Technology for Assistive Learning. Technology helps educators give each student the attention he or she needs, through tools such as online learning modules, personal tablets and, now, virtual and augmented reality. . Attention deficit disorder is a rising issue among K–12 schools.

Technology

Faculty Focus

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

It turns out that with each passing year, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to capture and hold a student’s attention and focus during my lessons. Our cognitive resources do, however, have a limit; therefore, we must always choose from the available resources that we can pay attention to.

Attention

eSchool News

DECEMBER 5, 2023

But TikTok, and social media more broadly, continues to capture curiosity and attention, and it’s not all just dance videos–Indiana science teacher @ChemteacherPhil commands an audience of more than 3 million followers on the app. Is there a lesson in that? Or, if you’re Maynard Kereke (Hip Hop M.D.),

Teaching Methods

Catlin Tucker

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

Instead of spending precious class time transferring information live for the whole group in the form of a lecture or mini-lesson, which presents myriad barriers (e.g., auditory processing, attention deficit, lack of background knowledge or vocabulary, absences), teachers record video instruction and assign those videos for homework.

Blended Learning

Edsurge

APRIL 3, 2018

It’s a question as frustrating as a hangnail, asked virtually every time I give a public lecture on teen brain development. Worried about attention spans? In my most recent book “Attack of the Teenage Brain,” I give an example of papers from two separate research groups examining video games and attentional states. Then I pause.

Mobile Devices

eSchool News

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

Analytical thinking Creative thinking Resilience, flexibility, and agility Motivation and self-awareness Curiosity and lifelong learning Technological literacy To prepare students for this type of workforce, educators must design impactful learning opportunities that require the use of these AI skills.

Intelligence

Edsurge

OCTOBER 27, 2020

But Lang admits that holding students’ attention is now harder than it’s been in the past, and he offers some practical suggestions on how to respond. We talked about his tips for holding attention during online classes, his thoughts on banning devices in the classroom and how he got into writing about teaching in the first place.

Instructors

Edsurge

JANUARY 10, 2023

SAN MARCOS, Texas — Live lecture classes are back at most colleges after COVID-19 disruptions, but student engagement often hasn’t returned to normal. To see what teaching is like on campus these days, I visited Texas State University in October and sat in on three large lecture classes in different subjects.

Instructors

eSchool News

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

As technology advances, we have seen other tools arise, including summarized transcription. They offer real-time summarized transcripts for lectures, meetings, and live events, either remotely or in the classroom. Both of these technologies contribute to the creation of a more inclusive and supportive learning environment.

Disabilities

Catlin Tucker

MAY 30, 2023

Often lectures or mini-lessons are provided to the whole group, presenting significant barriers for ELs who may not have the language skills or prior knowledge to access the information. The flexibility of these models allows teachers to customize instruction, adapt to students’ individual needs, and maximize learning outcomes.

English

Edsurge

JANUARY 16, 2023

The pandemic brought even more attention to this issue. There's a lecture mode in UNIVERSE. When class is about to start, the teacher can press that lecture mode button, and it will automatically have the students seated, their microphones muted and they have to pay attention. Teachers love that feature.

Teaching

Ask a Tech Teacher

FEBRUARY 11, 2019

Here’s an interesting piece from Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Jane Sandwood, on the explosion of wearable technology and its place in the education ecosystem: How Wearable Technology is Changing Education and Easing Disabilities. The vast majority of students are inseparable from the technology that they carry with them daily.

Disabilities

Edsurge

JUNE 6, 2024

“It’s a game-changing shift,” says Marc Watkins, a lecturer of writing and rhetoric at the University of Mississippi and director of the university’s AI Summer Institute for Teachers of Writing. New AI tools can make audio recordings of lectures and automatically create summaries and flashcards of the material.

Lecturing

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

It’s that in some cases attention gets really focused on a set of practices that are untested and can distract from the discussion that we have about teaching. And so when you talk about critiques of the lecture style of teaching, you group that under a practice that lacks authenticity. It’s not to say that anything that’s new is bad.

Art

Edsurge

APRIL 12, 2018

In my work as a digital learning specialist, I’m charged with helping teachers try new classroom strategies and learn to use the technology tools that make those strategies possible. Improving teaching and learning practices with technology is not about replacing traditional teaching. This rang true with me.

Essay

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Five professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they have some answers. In other words, a professor at this new type of university might assign some lecture videos by an MIT professor as homework, but then the local professor would lead discussions of the material and add his or her own perspective in in-person class sessions.

Lecturing

Edsurge

AUGUST 17, 2018

The question of whether or not to allow students to use smartphones, laptops and other technology in the classroom has been long-debated , and at times, heated. The problem arises when the student starts dividing his attention between taking notes and other tasks, such as texting or watching a video.

Multiple Choice Questions

Edsurge

OCTOBER 17, 2023

In fact he had been pursuing research to improve physics teaching for years, as a parallel area of work that people hadn’t paid much attention to. You’ve famously compared lecturing to bloodletting. This was my soundbite, but it was effective, that lectures are the pedagogical equivalent to bloodletting.

Teaching

Edsurge

DECEMBER 11, 2018

But that technology won’t be entirely homegrown: Chinese companies, particularly those building products or services laced with the machine learning algorithms, are increasingly playing a role in the tools that we call “AI.” But the lecturing should be done by the masters. One person lecturing to a crowd of 1,000? In the past 2.5

Teaching

Edsurge

APRIL 13, 2018

On the heels of one another, two tech titans recently announced higher-education partnerships that leverage transcription technology to make educational materials more accessible to a broader swath of learners. On April 5, Microsoft announced a partnership with the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

Accessibility

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

Most of us know what to expect in a face-to-face classroom: Students sitting in rows, facing instructors and listening to lectures, watching videos displayed on screens up front, or, in smaller classes, participating in lively discussion. But are colleges paying attention to what online students want most?

Mobile Devices

Edsurge

MARCH 6, 2019

David Peña-Guzman starts off his Friday class at San Francisco State University like any other professor might: students file in and pull out their note-taking materials, and he opens his laptop to begin lecture. For most of the course, there’s no lecture happening at all. Students put away their technology and read for four hours.

Reading