Using time and space to teach better in videos & class: The cognitive theory of multimedia learning
Channel: Michael Noetel Performance Psychologist
Date: 28/05/2020

People learn better when important things are timed properly, when they're spaced next to each other, and when they learn one thing at a time. These three principles are called temporal contiguity, spatial contiguity, and segmenting.

Temporal contiguity: if you want students to focus on one thing at a time, try to just present one thing at a time. This can apply to slides, graphs, images, or just about anything you display

Spatial contiguity: we want things that relate together to be as close to each other as possible.

Segmenting:  breaking the learning into small, meaningful segments. When we provide one long lesson, without a chance to break things up and practice what we're learning, it makes it hard for students to remember everything that happened, let alone deeply understand it. Instead, if we break the learning up into short segments, like these videos, students learn better.

For a peer reviewed take on how to create the most effective multimedia, see our paper in Review of Educational Research, the SJR #1 journal in education: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543211052329
Open-access pre-print: https://psyarxiv.com/pynzr/