I found the relatively short discussion on brain processing in this weeks reading (pg 75-79 in Conquering the Content) to be very useful for my teaching in general as well as online. In this section the author briefly summarizes current understanding of how the brain processes new information. It is ironic (and tragic perhaps) that college faculty are not required to take any courses in "How to Teach" before being turned loose in the classroom. My approach to teaching by default has been to try to make the topic interesting by giving the students lots of different ways of understanding/connecting with the material. This weeks reading suggests that less can be more. That too much embellishment might overwhelm the brain's ability to process it, negatively impacting the student's ability to grasp the essential concepts. The reading also highlighted the importance of developing a structure (outline) for content so that the student is better equipped to organize and connect the new content with things they already know.
So, while the readings stressed the importance of chunking the content for online courses, I see also tremendous value in using the same approach for my classroom based courses!
I agree with your ideas about chunking. Connecting ideas we are learning leads to deeper comprehension. It makes sense to do that in a hybrid or online course, but it also makes sense to do it face-to-face.
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