Lecture to go

For a few students, this may enhance learning. I dare say for most of the others it just reinforces the dumbing down of college. You can do it at home in your pajamas, no worries, don’t worry about what you may get from classrtoom interaction... College is supposed to be hard. Master’s degrees are supposed to be harder yet. And really, you should have to sweat pretty good to get a PhD. Why? Because if we can all just get a degree sitting at home, what is it really worth? Make degrees worth something!!!

Dr J, at 8:52 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

What about good teaching?

I think there is a missing element from this small discussion. What about the work of Centers for Teaching & Learning? Are not many ideas about good teaching related to student involvement, discussion, group work, and interaction with not only the instructor but also the other students? Lectures viewed ‘at leisure’ are of necessity pretty static, one way deals and dry lecture only teaching is not currently seen as ‘good’ teaching. What do we want to offer students- good teaching and learning or comfort and convenience? Please think about teaching and learning and how they require interaction- and a video of a lecture is not really that, is it?Mary

mary zamon, George Mason University, at 10:05 am EDT on September 23, 2008

LECTURES TO GO

I’m taking a course on “Justice” offered on-line by Harvard to all its alumni right now. It uses basically a static camera-on-talker approach, with some interaction with the real audience in the hall.

Is this a recipe for disaster? Au contraire! The professor giving the course obviously has a Black Belt in lecturing on justice.

Harvard is not using the bells-and-whistles available to on-line courses, but then it does not have to: a good professor is a good professor.

The real audience at Saunders Theater provides the appropriate human dimension.

Lectures on demand on-line? Bring it on!!

(I teach online, too, but my presentation is maybe 10% as good as the Harvard stuff. Nothing beats a really good prof. Ever. Even if it’s just a hologram...)

Larry Gillis, Professor, at 10:30 am EDT on September 23, 2008

More foolishness

This is just more foolishness created by the education guild: it bears no relationship to a good education and transformation of the individual. Higher education administrative types love this kind stuff because ultimately it holds out promise in terms of cutting the number of full time faculty, thereby saving money that can be wasted on more middle management drones and student development functionaries. I am hopeful that someday somewhere higher education faculty will once again be valued and foolish ideas such as this will be shot down before they have had an opportunity to further ruin the American educational system.

Anonymous, at 11:00 am EDT on September 23, 2008

re:

With respect to Dr. RingDing, the day that professors actually communicate what students in their class or program learn will be the day we will not need NSSE. NSSE is predicated on the fact that professors are notoriously bad at communicating what learning occurs and will almost always resist efforts about public and open disclosure of that information (note the strong opposition or general indifference among a large number of faculty to assessment). It is very difficult to ask professors to do an assessment or report on what their students have learned.

In the absence of no information, people will assume that students are not learning. Thus, colleges are forced to use instruments like NSSE. How else do you expect colleges to react when state, federal, and accreditation policy makers are breathing down their necks to provide some evidence of learning, and professors resist at all costs? From that perspective, the NSSE is the best alternative. But rather than come up with a useful alternative or option, I guess it is easier to complain and resist.

PS, at 11:30 am EDT on September 23, 2008

More time for the good stuff

This study corroborates what we have heard through various surveys, focus groups, and informal conversations here at UC Berkeley. We have been offering optional webcasting since 1995. We now offer 50 courses a semester in either video, audio, or screencast formats. In several focus groups with students last spring we heard many inspiring stories about how students were using the webcasts and podcasts as a tool to enhance and improve their studies. These are not passive experiences.

Mary, from George Mason, makes a very good point in her comment about interaction. As educators, I think we all can agree with the aim to enable and create more opportunities for interaction. In last week’s Educause Learning Initiative Fall Workshop on Learning Spaces, a biology professor from UMN talked about the redesign of her course, where the acquisition of the factual knowledge was student managed. They could get this via the text book or other means. The class time was used for the higher level thinking of application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

The implications of this are great — rethinking our physical classrooms to support more interaction and rethinking the lecture. Having a solid set of lectures online, with more engaging and stretching classroom time seems like a big educational win to me.

Mara Hancock, UC Berkeley, at 12:45 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

Possible confusion

I fear that some who see the title will interpret the title as meaning that students prefer online lectures to classes with an in-person instructor. What the study shows is that if you offer students something for nothing, they will take the offer.

Bob Sommer, Professor at University of California, Davis, at 1:35 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

“College is supposed to be hard.”

The sentiment expresssed above by Dr. J seems to indicate a confusion between a fraternity initiation and an education. An education is supposed to be effective. The tools and experiences that are cost effective should be adopted.

Having more effective tools does not in any way change the fact that some students will work harder than others. Nor does technology somehow excuse students from investing effort on their own behalf.

Planning Guy, Planning and Budgeting, at 1:45 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

My objection to Webcasting is that it changes the dynamics of the classroom. For example, will I be able to make the students feel comfortable asking questions and participating in discussions if what they say will be posted online along with everything I say? Can I criticize anyone in the classroom, knowing that the criticism will live on in cyberspace forever? Will I, or any student, dare to play the devil’s advocate on any sensitive issue, if anybody can snip a few choice sentences out of context and post them on Youtube?

old fashioned teacher, at 2:40 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

Lecture to go please

Distance Learning, Online Classes and Podcasting are not a choice. Universities will adopt and utilize these technologies or be left behind. The reason most faculty are against new technology is because they can’t even use their cell phones.

Professors should worry about loosing their jobs if they are not willing to change and learn something new themselves. The U.S. automobile industry is a perfect example…they did not want to change and now they can’t compete with their foreign competitors.

We might also consider the state of our economy. Will students be able to afford enough fuel to get to class every day in the near future? How many utilities are wasted by classrooms setting empty?

New technologies allow non-traditional students to take classes without sacrificing their jobs or families. Students can take classes from anywhere and universities can increase enrollment.

Education does not have to be punishment…It can be exciting and entertaining.

Sure I know you can’t teach an old dog new tricks…but you can get a new dog.

charles weibel, at 3:16 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

Learning styles

Knowledge comes to us in a variety of formats. Some stuff I read, some I hear, some I eke out myself. (Wasn’t there an old Confusious saying about something like that.) If we want the students to gather information by hearing what we tell them (lecture) then certainly for that we can video tape, put it on youtube, Blackboard, whatever, and they can get told to them over and over until they get it right. If we want classroom discussions, videotaping is dumb, dumb, dumb. (I hope my knowledge base isn’t too old, and most of you know what I mean by “videotaping"—even though no one “tapes” any more.) If I want feedback from students classroom discussions are not always effective. I can’t tell you how often I fell into the trap of holding a 1 on 1 “discussion” and the other 24 students in class wondered what we were talking about. I liked Blackboard, because it gave everyone the chance to throw in their “two cents” worth. (Now it might be a “bucks” worth.) However, that was still a problem because not every student was skilled at writing. Sitting in my office with one to one conversations gave me more information. Finally, there were tests. Sometimes the information had to be spot-on, like “find the second derative of cos(2x+3)", and sometimes the evaluation of the information was subjective, like “Why is knowing the second derative of cos(2x+3) worth knowing?” (I taught math and math education.) All in all, my goal was to get some type of interaction between what I knew and could offer students, and their organizing what they knew so that they better understood the mathematics or how they could teach others. The concrete stuff I guess I could have explained on some type of technological format, as long as they still personally had to do some mathematics stuff themselves. However, the subjective stuff needed a lot more interaction and it would be presumptious of me to assume that by becoming a talking head the students would benefit much from me.

Fred Flener, Retired, at 3:25 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

Leaving aside some of the tenor of the comments above (some of which assumes a relatively low opinion of students), I applaud the use of technology to allow access to course content.

Should streaming lectures replace “butts in seats"? No, and I don’t think the respondents to the survey indicated a preference for this. Rather, they cited a tendency to use the streaming option for when they couldn’t be in class (life happens). If worried, administer a physical attendance policy, and let the viewers review.

I think it is especially relevant that some of the survey participants indicated a desire to have access to the class content after graduation. I see this as another indication of the 2.0 native to assume access to all content. Toward this, we have the technology, which is, regardless of what the business consultant indicated (another veiled add here at InsideHigherEd), is on the cheaper side—and getting ever more so.

Read more here: http://trainerbill.wordpress.com/

Bill Jackson, at 7:45 pm EDT on September 23, 2008

I’ll Take My Lecture to Go Please

It is always an exigent task to sort out what benefits a new technology has to offer in relation to the possible negatives. Undeniably, there are benefits to having lectures available on podcasts (students are able to view missed lectures or re-listen to material which they may not have fully comprehended the first time) but there are also negative aspects too. The one that most concerns me is the human interaction element of the student-teacher relationship. Although the moments I have spent with higher ed. teachers which might be called ‘human’ have been fleeting and irregular, they still exist. In fact, some of the teachers who have had the most impact in my life have been at college or graduate school and no podcast would have delivered those lessons — lessons of being human.

Michael Ernest Sweet, Founder at Learning for a Cause, at 8:50 am EDT on September 24, 2008

Who needs Humans?

Good Afternoon. I am Roboteacher. I am programmed to deliver 36,354 different lectures on 36 discrete disciplines/subject areas in 57 world languages and/or dialects. I am accredited for undergraduate and graduate course work at more than 3700 participating colleges and universities. To receive the appropriate credit for this lecture, please swipe your Inter-Col ID card now. Thank you. Please select the lecture you wish to view from my Menu, select Language, insert your credit or debit card and press “Start.”You have just been educated.

Roboteacher, at 1:50 pm EDT on September 24, 2008

Re-think Class time

I want to follow up on what I just posted: I think that for the most part colleges have not thought through what is the best use of the professors time. Students can get information via a video podcast or pre-recorded lecture. Then when they come to class you can really launch into content. In our classes the students watch the lectures at home and then my time in class is used to help them where they get stuck. This works especially well with classes where there is just some “stuff” for the student to learn. In our Chemistry classes this has freed up more time for labs and directed problem solving (kids solving problems with me there to help when they get stuck)

I am implemeting this in Chemistry classes, but is also working well in some foreign language classes.

The teacher teaches the student how to “conjugate verbs” and do other grammatical things on the podcast and then uses class time for more conversational language learning.

I think that the days of kids having to get all of their info from the teacher is going to go away. We need to embrace new forms of learning so that we can prepare our kids for the 21st Century.

As a note: I do not see this dumbing down our kids. My students are more successful and better prepared for harder coursework because of this teaching methodology.

Jon Bergmann, Teacher at Woodland Park High School, at 2:05 pm EDT on September 24, 2008

Half-Baked Pizza

There is a middle position on this one, one that I call the “half-baked pizza” solution. Don’t post the lecture, post a very brief *outline* of the lecture.

There is much to be said for inconveniencing students from time to time—like making them haul their butts out of bed, get to class, and see the dynamics that take place *around* the content.

Seriously, does anyone merely “read” their lectures in class? If so, by all means post them—there’s no need to hold a live class. But doesn’t a good prof make instant adjustments when s/he sees how the lecture is being received? And aren’t most of us revising our notes as we drive to work and walk to the lecture hall?

A student with my “script” would be sorely disappointed by the gaps between what is on the page and what actually happens in the hall.

Rob Weir, at 12:25 pm EDT on September 26, 2008

Let’s Take Our Lecture In Class

I support many of the people who made comment on this. I would rather go to class and pay attention to our professor. Because lecture is the way that we can ask question, have discussion and submit the assignments in person. It requires plenty of time to study and spend time in class. Well, if students really want to learn, then they should be prepared for lecture and taking notes. If some of them are not good note-takers, then their mind and brain is not that fast and smart enough to take notes, I would prefer to take supporting class of english: writing, reading, listening.

Bulgan, Santa Monica College at student, at 1:30 pm EST on November 26, 2008