How Simple Visual Cues Can Improve Your Teaching Materials
In a 2020 study, researchers demonstrated that annotating your instructional videos and slides can improve student retention.
November 19, 2020
File this study in your simple-but-effective strategies folder. When creating teaching materials like instructional videos or slides, a 2020 study concluded that adding annotations like arrows, text labels, or circles can provide "visual scaffolding" that clarifies your teaching priorities and guides student focus and attention. Students who were exposed to materials with visual cues outperformed students who saw the same materials without cues by about 9 percentage points.