teechrA guide for lecturers
How do you turn a lecture into a three-minute video students actually watch?
Pick the six ideas the rest of the course hangs on. Give each one a name, a credit and a drawing. Say it in about 280 words, and end on one question the student has to answer. Send it before the next session, and again after. That is the whole method; the research behind it, the recipe and the steps are below — and teechr does it from the slides you already have.
Why three minutes, and why a question
Four findings, and what each one changes.
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Ebbinghaus, 1885
Forgetting starts at once
Without a return to the material, most of what a session taught is gone within days. Each return flattens the curve.
So the video is sent before the session and again after it.
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Roediger & Karpicke, 2006
Recalling beats rereading
Students tested on a passage remembered more of it a week later than students who had re-read it.
So the video ends on a question, not a summary.
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Guo, Kim & Rubin, 2014
Attention runs short
Across 6.9 million video sessions on edX, the typical viewer stopped by about six minutes, however long the video.
So the video takes two or three minutes, not thirty.
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Mayer, multimedia principles
Words with pictures, not words as pictures
People learn better from narration with a relevant drawing than from words alone — and worse when the same words are also written on the screen.
So each idea is drawn as it is explained, and the slide is not the picture.
The recipe
What goes in, and what stays in the lecture.
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Six ideas, not sixty
The load-bearing ones: the concepts the rest of the course is built on. If a student remembers only these, the lecture still stands.
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A name and a credit for each
Herzberg's two factors, not "the motivation part". A named idea can be recalled; a credited one can be checked.
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One drawing per idea
A comparison, a sequence, a hierarchy, a cycle: the shape of the idea, drawn as it is explained.
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About 280 words
Two to three minutes at a comfortable pace. A three-hour lecture is 27,000 spoken words, so this is a ninety-to-one cut: choose, don't compress.
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One question at the end
A retrieval question about the video's own ideas, answered before the student moves on.
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Sent twice
Before the session as a primer, after it as a reminder. The same video does both.
How to make one
By hand in an evening, or from your slides in four minutes.
By hand
- Read the deck and list every concept it names. Keep the six the others depend on.
- For each, write its name, who it comes from, and one sentence on why it matters — about 280 words in all.
- Draw each idea on paper or a tablet: a diagram of how it is built, not a slide with text.
- Record the narration over the drawings with a phone or a screen recorder. One take is fine.
- Write one question about one of the ideas, with three or four options.
- Upload it unlisted, and send the link before the next session and again after it.
With teechr
- Upload the .pptx or .pdf. teechr reads the whole deck.
- Read the script it writes — six ideas, each named and credited — and change any line. Nothing is voiced until you have.
- Press voice. Each idea is drawn as it is narrated, and the video ends on its question.
- Copy the link, or show it as a QR code for a room of phones. Students need no account.
The first video is free, no card needed. Then from €7.99 a month — see pricing.
Questions
What lecturers ask before they try it.
Won't a three-minute video replace my lecture?
No. It carries six ideas, not the argument, the examples or the discussion. Sent before the session it primes the vocabulary; sent after, it brings the ideas back. Whether students come is a question of what the session offers that the video cannot.
Why not just record the lecture?
A recording repeats the session; a three-minute video selects from it. Across millions of video sessions the typical viewer stops by about six minutes however long the video is, so a ninety-minute recording is watched to the end by almost nobody.
How long should the video be?
Two to three minutes: about 280 words of narration at a comfortable pace. Longer than that, and six ideas become twenty.
What should the question at the end be?
A retrieval question about one of the video's own ideas: name the two factors, put the four stages in order, pick the right definition. Not a trick. The act of recalling is what makes the idea stick.
Which slides work best?
Any deck with the ideas in it: bullet points are enough. Diagrams and citations in the deck help the selection; decorative pictures make no difference.
Can I do this for a whole course?
One video per session, or one per chapter. A course of ten sessions is ten videos; in teechr each has its own link and they sit in a folder.
Do students need an account?
Not with teechr: each video is a private link that opens in any browser, on a phone or a laptop. If you make yours by hand, an unlisted video on any host does the same.
Is the script accurate?
teechr works only from what you upload, credits every theory it names, and shows you the script before a word is voiced; you delete what you disagree with. The same rule holds by hand: write nothing you would not say in the lecture.
Try it on your next lecture.
Your first video is free, no card needed. Upload a .pptx or .pdf — you'll read the script before anything is voiced.