One of the things that came a couple of times at our learning and teaching conference last week was lecture recordings. At the close of the conference the Students Representative Council VP for education emphasised that students want all lectures recorded, however the part of the keynote that talked about lecture recording maybe didn't really support this idea. Rather than bowing down to student demand, perhaps we should first look at the evidence about whether lecture recordings support learning.
There is some evidence about how students use lecture recording videos, however it is far from clear cut whether it is positive use. In his keynote Simon Lancaster told us about a study that looked at when students watch lecture recordings. Maths students appear to repeatedly watch sections of a lecture soon after the lecturer had taken place, which to me suggests a very positive use of the recordings, with the students watching them to understand more difficult concepts covered. Life sciences students binged on lecture recordings just before the exams, so this seems like a rather more negative use, and maybe not something that we would wish to encourage or support.
It is interesting to look at the fairly recent history of medical education in relation to this. About 20 years ago there was major shift towards problem-based learning in medicine, which seemed to lead to much improved learning outcomes with deeper understanding and better problem-solving skills. However, it was also unpopular with the students, showing that what students like is not necessarily what is good for education.
Perhaps before we start recording all lectures we need to do some proper investigation, and find out if lecture recordings are actually useful part of education. It could well be that short Kahn Academy style videos of the difficult mathematical concepts would have been a better solution for the maths students who used lecture recordings in a positive way, and maybe decent summary notes are a better solution for the students who are panicking before an exam.
4 comments:
In my dreams lecture recordings are a facilitating step in a learning and teaching revolution. In my nightmares lecture recordings entrench the worst elements of current practice.
My scrawled notes included another paragraph, which seems to have been lost in editing: "If all lecturers are going to be recorded, there will inevitably be pressure on lecturers to follow formats work well for recordings. This might result in a push towards what we now consider to be the bad old traditional lecture, with a one-way transmission of information from lecturer to student, and no active learning taking place."
We created chemistry vignettes to avoid the worst aspects of lecture binge viewing and put back some active learning. http://www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry/resource/res00001428/using-student-authored-vignettes?cmpid=CMP00003361
Lecture recordings should not be used to mitigate for poor teaching. I therefore fully agree that feeding the appetite for more recordings from students is not the answer, and educators are rightfully wary. Instead, institutions should offer recordings as a complementary learning aide which can serve to build upon learning in a class/lecture/activity. The emerging trend in 'capture' systems is to use the potential of video, communication tools and analytics to wrap learning around the teaching session - offering flexible tools for before, during and after teaching for educators. [No sales pitch, but...]At Echo360, we stress the importance of student engagement with learning moments and are aiming to make the system capture learning, not just a copy of the lecture. This approach is actually reducing consumption of lecture recordings because learning is happening in class, with knowledge gaps and misunderstandings being addressed through testing and discourse.
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