Research School Network: Dual coding What to consider for remote learning

This is a short blog explaining more about the series of ​‘Seven Researched Informed Pedagogies for Remote Learning’ published recently by the Sandringham EdTech Demonstrator School. This is a series of documents about recommended pedagogies and related teaching and learning strategies which are helpful for remote teaching. Resources can be found here: https://www.sandagogy.co.uk/remote-learning-evidence-informed-pedagogy/. The focus of this post is about Dual Coding (page 7).

Dual coding has become very popular in evidence-based education. It seems to offer a tangible way to help students understand concepts more effectively by enabling more successful encoding, and reducing the cognitive load. However, it is a very complex theory and one which has multiple meanings. A very useful introduction can be found from a blog by the The Learning Scientists ​‘Learn how to study using … Dual Coding’. The information below will not explore the theory in any depth, we will focus here on some simple considerations which aim to improve the effectiveness of remote learning using some core concepts of dual coding.

Teaching remotely can expand some of the challenges that we already face in a classroom. There are many challenges experienced in remote learning, including distractions for the learner and the communication of complex new ideas. Without pupils in front of us, we have limited powers to prevent or monitor distractions and immediate feedback about understanding is much more difficult. Dual coding won’t solve these problems, but it could help to aid understanding for learners, by thinking through delivery modes very carefully. 

1. Critique your powerpoint slides and resources

Research suggests that we understand more when there are both pictures and words. However, this is very open to error, it does not mean that we double the amount of ​‘stuff’ on our resources. Every word and every picture needs to be carefully considered to ensure that there is not overload, and that the pupil sees the right information at the right time.

The example below is a very clear lesson in how to display information, taken from the EEF Guidance Report ​‘Improving Secondary Science’ .

The diagram on the right with a key makes the reader look in two different directions for the information. This is more difficult than seeing the word in the actual place which it is matched to. The left hand diagram is therefore placing less cognitive load on the reader and is more effective in enabling understanding.

Putting pictures onto slides to make them look good is not a good idea. I have stopped doing this, even though my slides now look less interesting. Instead, any picture chosen is put there for a reason – to convey an idea or to illustrate a point. In remote learning, it is even more important to thin down content and consider the importance and point of every word and every picture, to prevent overload. A picture could be a highly effective tool in aiding understanding, or it could be very distracting. You need to differentiate between the two.

2. Live remote lessons – staged explanations

If you are teaching live remote lessons, thinking through explanations of concepts is very important and dual coding can help. Adam Boxer illustrates this very clearly in his recent ResearchEd talk ​‘Dual coding for teachers who can’t draw: Teacher’s explanations’. Whether you are using a visualizer to draw live, or have a powerpoint ready to go through, it is important to build up a concept step by step and not show all of a picture immediately. Taking the pupils through the stages of development will help the learning to stick.

3. Recorded remote lessons – voiceovers

If you are sending pupils recorded lessons, recording your voice over a powerpoint could be very effective as it could try to mirror the points above in terms of building up understanding. It is important to pace information on slides as you go through explanations, rather than revealing a whole concept on one slide. You are attempting to help the learner to connect to learning and link things together in a managed and carefully constructed way, rather than pushing all of the information to them and hoping that some of it will stick. And it is important to think through the balance between the content on the slides and your verbal input. If you display something interesting on a slide and are also talking, the pupils will not hear your voice. Better to give them time to read it and then talk, or talk to a blank or simple visual, and then explain after.

4. Preparing resources

If you are creating resources such as handouts and worksheets, it is useful to follow the same guidelines. Cut down on information displayed in any one place and consider using diagrams alongside words where this is appropriate. This is not about preferred learning styles, which have no evidence base, this is to enable the encoding to the student’s long-term memory. Graphic organisers can be a very powerful tool, but again need careful consideration. Helping students to organise knowledge into a logical form can be very helpful, but you will need to do this for them with new knowledge and suggest a template and model. Oliver Caviglioli has a lot of useful information about this on his website, and explains it in depth in his recent Research Ed Home talk ​‘Dual coding to organise ideas’.