Innovative teaching: Assistant professor keeps lessons simple
Assistant professor Logan Fiorella is deeply aware of how his lessons affect student thinking.
To help guide learning as an act of sense-making rather than of passive memorization, Fiorella incorporates plenty of examples and visualizations into his lessons and presents information in a conversational style to engage students in creative activities like drawing.
“We found in our research that students learn best from multimedia lessons when we pair solid multimedia design with appropriate generative activities,” said Fiorella, who teaches an online master’s-level course on cognition in the Department of Educational Psychology. “We’ve also found that getting more actively involved in presenting the information, such as by dynamically drawing diagrams for students or using hand gestures, can support learning.”