Student’s understanding and overcoming their educational difficulties are the main purposes of the educational process regardless the applied techniques or strategies, whether face-to-face learning or distant learning. It is becoming known that using technology in the educational process considers as an improvement to the traditional learning and provide a farther dimension to creativity and flexibility to get better results. One of the e-learning techniques that teachers prefer to use is online synchronous lecture or an asynchronous (recorded lectures, everyone chooses his own time to listen to) as an additional tool to enrich their lesson.
It comes to my mind a question has been asked by Jana Jan in 2014 after watching some prolonged online presentations that includes numerous written slides, some lasted from 40 minutes to several hours. Her question was Are You Already Micro lecturing? She claims that such presentations do not suit our attention limits and not appropriate for mobile devices use. On this occasion, I will depart from her question and dig deeper into the core of micro lecture.
Micro Lecture…David M. Penrose (the One Minute Professor), an independent instructional designer also eLearning consultant, has articulated the process for creating micro-lectures as stated by Shea (2009). To carry on (OMP)trip for more enjoyable learning, In this article, I don’t use (micro lecture) as an exact one-minute lecture, but as a shortest and interesting instructional content as possible, which is formatted for mobile learning, it is approximately a few minutes’ presentations, short video, poster or infographic sheet with specific points (micro contents).
Real-Learning Time… according to David Reeves (2015), no matter what teacher do during the class, students’ concentrations long on one task takes two to five minutes per year old of their age (which means; the attention span for a five years old goes around twenty-five minutes in maximum after that it will start to reduce),this is the way in face to face classroom (F2F), which is for sure will be different comparing with the distant learning, although the current studies indicate to the great majority of students who prefer micro-lecture style(Zhang,2019).
Tips of Successful… Flexible micro-lecture is one of the most enjoyable teaching methods for students, because of its content, design, and application. It is worth to say that it shares almost the same outcomes of the traditional learning. There are some tips that should be followed to achieve a successful micro lecture:
- Understand the online learning concept. First of all, we need to realize that online learning is not the easiest way to teach, but a favorite way for students, because most of them are masters in using ICT, that’s why teacher should understand that students learn and manufacture their learning at the same time so online learning is what they do not what teacher give.
- Micro Contents…Information-rich micro-content can be extremely persuasive, especially in the digital space (Lorenger, 2017), where allow students to move deeper to create their own learning on their own style, also micro-content, presented at the right time, leaving lasting positive impressions (micro contents, huge achievements).
- Time Management… As Student, Online learning certainly needs a lot of flexibility in terms of when you want to practice your study, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to study! you need to schedule time in your personal calendar to study the materials in your online course and complete assignments, without following the full online lecture because it will be boring as the current study presented that students don’t focus with the teacher in traditional Class (F2F) more than 40 minutes in the maximum that means the teachers wasting their time in the useless thing because the students will be busy in another task, they may be in another world.
- Task-Based Learning (Flexibility)… I believe that the best way to apply e-learning is through the micro lecture and the best way to apply the micro lecture is to follow task-based learning and flexible time to send the assignment. lecturers must understand that students have many classes and assignment to do, so no time to sit with you one hour for listen-only and then start to think how to solve the assignments.
Why Micro-Lecter …. Norma Scagnoli (2012) stated in her study case report that “micro-lectures encourage a self-directed model of learning, allowing students to select lessons to watch and to move through them at their own pace. Micro lectures are easy to integrate into the curriculum because they can be used in a variety of ways and are short enough to fit almost anywhere, and they offer an appealing option for mobile learning” and here are some tips why to use (ML):
- Micro-lecture (ML) allowing students to move through all topics anywhere or any time and replaying according to their need
- Jana Jan (2014) suggested that (ML)format encourages teachers to be concise in their presentations. A micro lecture can focus on a single important point, providing a self-study opportunity for foundational concepts and those that are difficult to understand. They can also return to a micro lecture any number of times to ensure understanding.
- A group of research in south Amptron university Stated in their action research report in 2017, the class results being accessible, problem areas can easily be identified, thus influencing the content of the next face-to-face session.
- Micro lectures (ML), saving classroom time for activities flowing flipped classroom, so student come to class for presentation and feedback only.
- Micro contents are reusable which is helpful for teachers, So by the end of the semester it could be interesting content that can be used any time after refreshing, it is certainly easier to update a 5-minute lecture than a 45 minute.
How to Apply Micro Lecture
- you have to list the keys and the main points that you are aimed to cover in your micro lecture. This will empower your micro lecture and make students more confident in you.
- you should Read and Write on what you are about to do in advance (even if you Are an expert in your filed), It’s going to help you be clear. Don’t forget to prepare for 15-30 seconds of introduction and summary to create an acceptable context.
- Prepare your slides, one slide for every one minute in your luster, and don’t do more than five minutes. Use main points, simple writing, straight to keywords, be attention for coherence voice, and slides, replace written explanation with voice explanation
- Record micro lecture using microphone and web camera. the voice should be loud, clear, and consistent without noises. Include a web camera to make your lectures even more credible.
- Link the students to you. When making a video, look directly into your web camera. don’t show maps or diagrams even charts because the web camera is not suitable for these documents.
- In designing an assignment, try to follow the micro lecture coordination, this assignment should be a revision to ensure that students understood the proposed topic.
Micro Lecture …Give them the Tips and Let them Dive…
References:
- Moving from Synchronous to Asynchronous Online Instruction
Promoting Student Engagement Through Micro-Lecture Captures with Embedded Quizzes
- 7 things you should know about Micro lectures
- Online education – Introducing the Micro lecture Format Attention span Micro lecture
- Why you should add videos to your teaching
- 10 brilliant design rules for e-learning