Choose Your Own Lecture (CYOL)
Transforming passive video lectures into interactive, adaptive learning experiences.
What is CYOL?
Choose Your Own Lecture (CYOL) is an educational technology platform that combines the flexibility of asynchronous learning with the engagement of synchronous instruction. Students can watch prerecorded lectures at their own pace while still receiving personalized guidance from instructors and teaching assistants when questions arise.
Traditional video lectures allow students to pause, rewind, and replay content, but they often leave learners isolated when they encounter confusion. Live classes provide immediate interaction but require everyone to move at the same pace. CYOL bridges this gap by allowing students to learn independently while maintaining access to meaningful instructor interaction directly within the learning experience.
See CYOL in Action
The video below provides a brief overview of how the Choose Your Own Lecture platform works for both students and instructors.
How It Works
As students watch a lecture, they can submit questions at the exact moment they arise. Each question is automatically linked to a specific timestamp in the video, preserving the context of the student's confusion. Instructors and teaching assistants can respond immediately during designated live support hours or provide responses asynchronously.
Once answered, those responses become available to future learners at the same point in the lecture. Rather than repeatedly answering identical questions, the system builds a growing library of explanations, examples, and clarifications that benefit everyone who watches the content.
Students remain in control of their learning experience. They can choose whether to view questions and responses, allowing them to focus on topics they find challenging while moving quickly through material they already understand.
Supporting Different Learning Needs
Students enter courses with different backgrounds, experiences, and learning speeds. Some learners need additional examples and prerequisite material, while others are ready to move quickly through familiar concepts.
CYOL accommodates these differences by allowing students to proceed at their own pace and access additional support only when needed. The platform can also provide optional "detour" content that offers background information, worked examples, real-world applications, or advanced topics before returning students to the main instructional pathway.
Benefits for Students
- Learn at your own pace with pause, rewind, and playback controls.
- Ask questions exactly when confusion occurs.
- Receive instructor support through live or delayed responses.
- Learn from questions asked by other students.
- Access additional examples and prerequisite material when needed.
- Engage with instructional content without disrupting your learning flow.
Benefits for Instructors
- Provide support precisely where students struggle.
- Reduce repetitive responses to commonly asked questions.
- Create a reusable knowledge base that grows over time.
- Support large classes more efficiently.
- Gain insight into student learning through analytics and usage data.
- Enhance online, hybrid, flipped, and technology-enabled courses.
Applications
CYOL is designed to support a wide range of educational environments, including:
Research and Development
CYOL was developed at the University of South Florida and has been evaluated through classroom deployments at multiple institutions. The platform was created to address longstanding challenges in educational delivery, particularly the need to balance flexibility, engagement, scalability, and individualized support.
By transforming video lectures from static presentations into interactive, inquiry-driven learning experiences, CYOL provides a new model for delivering education in both academic and professional settings.