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Background: As a result of the COVID‐19 pandemic, many teachers found themselves making a rapid and often challenging shift from in‐person classroom teaching to teaching in an online environment. As teachers continue to learn about working in this new environment, research in cognitive and learning sciences, specifically findings from cognitive load theory and related areas, can provide meaningful strategies for teaching in this 'new normal'. Objectives: This paper describes 12 tips derived from contemporary research in educational psychology, focusing particularly on empirically supported strategies that teachers may apply in their online classroom to ensure that learning is optimized. Implications for Practice: These strategies are generalizable across age groups and learning areas, and are categorized into one of two themes: approaches to optimize the design of online learning materials, and instructional strategies to support student learning. A discussion follows, outlining how teachers may apply these strategies in different contexts, with a brief overview of emerging efforts that aim to bridge cognitive load theory and self‐regulated learning research. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic?: Online teaching and learning have become more prevalent due to the COVID‐19 pandemicScientific research provides guidelines for how to optimize (online) learningA key leading theory that can inform teachers is cognitive load theory (CLT)CLT‐inspired research presents guidelines for improving students' learning What this paper adds?: 12 empirically supported tips are presented to inform online teaching and learning practiceAll 12 tips are inspired by and can be explained by CLTEight tips focus on optimizing the design of online learning materialsFour tips cover instructional strategies that can support students' learning Implications for practitioners: Teachers can use these tips when they design their online learning experiencesAppropriate use of these tips should support the learning processUsing these tips should enhance students' retention and understanding of the materialTherefore, these tips should help students perform better on tests [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary writing is a useful instructional tool for learning. However, summary writing is a challenge to many students. This mixed‐method study examined the potential of the Student Mental Model Analyzer for Research and Teaching (SMART) system to help students produce summaries that reflect key concepts and relations in a text. SMART uses the students' summary to generate a multi‐dimensional 3S (surface, structure, semantic) evaluation of the students' mental model. This model is then used to drive feedback to help students revise their summary. The current study is an initial investigation examining whether writing and revising in SMART improves students' summary quality. Students (n = 38) in a graduate‐level online course used SMART for seven reading assignments. The 38 students submitted a total of 357 summaries in response to the seven readings. In 47 cases, students produced both an initial draft and a modified revision. These 47 cases were selected for analysis. In the quantitative phase, MANOVA results indicated that students' summaries improved along the 3S dimensions from initial draft to revision. In the qualitative phase, inspection of exemplar cases revealed how students' mental models changed towards more robust and cohesive knowledge structure for texts. Lay Description: Lay DescriptionWhat is already known about this topicTexts are the main means of acquiring new information.Writing a summary is frequently used as a tool for learning from text.Even proficient readers often struggle to learn from text due to insufficient support.Automated summary evaluation (ASE) can help students revise their summaries.What this paper addsWe introduce the Student Mental Model Analyzer for Research and Teaching (SMART) system.SMART uses a written summary to evaluate the quality of the learner's mental models.SMART analyses a student's mental model in surface, structural and semantic dimensions.SMART helps students improve content‐coverage and overall quality of their summaries.Implications for practiceSMART can be a supplement in classrooms to help students learn from complex texts.Teachers can use SMART to provide real‐time, personalized, formative feedback at a scale.Students can use SMART to comprehend the text to prepare for meaningful class discussion.Scholars can use SMART to investigate expertise development in summary via instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]