Lightboards are LED-lit plexiglass panels designed to create an engaging, interactive experience for distance learning. They allow instructors to annotate embedded lecture slides in real time, all while remaining visible on camera—capturing both the instructor and content seamlessly in a single frame without obstruction.

A lightboard was used to create six instructional videos (IVs), which were delivered asynchronously as tutorial materials in a first-year biology course. These tutorials aimed to address foundational knowledge gaps that arise from the absence of secondary school biology as a prerequisite for students in the university’s engineering program. Historically, students with only grade 10 biology have consistently underperformed compared to peers with more advanced secondary-level biology education.
Over a two-year period, data were collected through three surveys administered to two different cohorts of undergraduate students. The findings consistently indicate outcomes contrary to those originally intended.

Most students in both groups—those with only grade 10 biology and those with grade 11 or 12 biology (n = 81)—reported that the instructional videos (IVs) enhanced their learning and made the material easier to understand. However, differences emerged in how the IVs affected students' confidence in the course. Among the more experienced group, confidence attributed to the IVs increased over time (from 60% to 66%). In contrast, students with less biology background experienced a decline in confidence, dropping from 70% to 50% as the course progressed. A similar pattern was observed in self-reported engagement: while engagement remained high among students with advanced biology, those with only grade 10 biology showed a marked decrease—from 50% to 20%—in feeling engaged throughout the course.

Final course grades revealed that 47% of students with advanced biology backgrounds (grade 11 or 12) earned an 'A-' or higher, whereas 63% of students with only grade 10 biology received grades ranging from 'C' to 'F'. This trend has been consistently observed in previous years.

As might be expected, the students who benefited most from the asynchronous instructional videos (IVs) were those for whom English is a second language (ESL). The distribution of ESL and non-ESL (EFL) students was relatively balanced, with the majority in both groups having completed grade 11 or 12 biology in secondary school. In both groups, use of IVs for studying increased as the course progressed, becoming the most relied-upon tool by the end. However, ESL students consistently reported more positive outcomes related to IV use. Their self-reported confidence in the course, attributed to the IVs, rose significantly—from 52 % to 81 %—while the EFL group experienced a decline from 68 % to 56 %

Keywords: Technology, bridging knowledge, lightboard, asynchronous teaching and learning.