Podcast versus lecture shootout
Some professors posting their lectures online as podcasts claim they are seeing a rise in absenteeism. Professors are responding by having more pop quizzes or giving extra credit for attending class.
Am I missing something? What’s the problem here? If students can get all of the necessary information and pass the final exam just by listening to the podcasts, then A ) the student should get a cookie and B ) the professor do some serious thinking about how much value there is of hearing the information firsthand.
If the student could just as easily get all the information from a podcast, then isn’t the lecture period being completely wasted? Perhaps the time could be used better by providing the lecture in advance and then using the class period for discussion. Or perhaps the class period should focus on exploring the information and finding practical uses for it in small groups with guidance from the professor.
This may sound like a radical idea, but maybe having three hundred students listening passively to a single person lecturing isn’t the most efficient use of the time. In the past, it might have been tremendously efficient. Before the internet, portable media devices and electronic recording, gathering everybody into one room so the professor only needs to say things once might have been the most efficient way to share information. Times have changed though. Perhaps the process needs to be re-evaluated. If students can get their information via podcast, maybe there are more effective ways to use the class period.
When the lecture, presentation slides and notes can all be shared online, what SHOULD a higher education class look like?
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ArtGuy
1/24/2006
I’m hard pressed to remember a time when I was in a room with 300 other students and listening to a one way conversation (read: lecture) from the professor.
… but that’s only because I fell asleap.
I think those classes would have been awesome if we had started out listening to a podcast (or if necessary video podcast) and then saved the class time for more hands-on activities that could build on the knowledge we had gained.
Note to self: When I take a job teaching college kids …
Alfred Thompson
1/24/2006
A university education should be more interactive than a secondary school education. Classes were the student can not interact in class with a professor (not a TA/GA but a professor) are just wrong in my opinion. If enough students rejected that model the schools would adapt. But of course all too many students are there for a piece of paper rather than a real education.
Kelly Dumont
1/24/2006
You radical subversive. A student must be in class. That is the only way they can partake of the professor’s greatness. I felt too many times that I was only in a class to feed the professor’s ego. The best information didn’t come from the lecture. It came from a study session with other students or even the book.
Casey Hales
1/24/2006
I started college in 1972 and went 3 1/2 years and quit. After growing up (yeah, right), I returned to college in 1993. Guess what? It hadn’t changed a lick since ‘72.
College is a 4-5 year endurance test. You endure, you win. I have attended 5 colleges/universities, from large to small and they are pretty much the same.
I returned to college to become a teacher. I had teachers teaching me to teach. I can honestly say most failed. I didn’t learn to become a teacher, I learned how NOT to be a teacher. The biggest waste of time was sitting through lecture. Lecture is some professor either reading from the book he published and made you purchase for the class, or is about to publish and make the next class buy.
My son is currently in college and the classes they make you take are still amazing. I bet 1/4 of the classes he’s taking have nothing to do with his degree. I know I had to take some pretty bizarre stuff to become a Special Education teacher. I had to take bowling! I drove 45 miles a day to go bowling! I’m sorry, bowling is an excuse to drink beer with your friends and act silly, not pay hundreds of dollars per semester hour to bowl. Not sure how that and archery help me prepare as a Special Educator. Although that shooting an arrow thing might come in handy as a behavior modification device…
Please, podcast! Please vidcast! Let me at least suffer at my own choosing! I agree with Kelly, I learned more sitting with a group classmates engaged in discussion. Actually, I learned more from life its ownself, to quote Dan Jenkins, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.
I used to think to make money I’d start a church. But, now, I think opening a college would be a license to print money.
[...] (37) Tech (36) Tech Forum 2005 (4)
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Jeff Moore
1/25/2006
Interesting thing here … teachers who are using Moodle in my district are reporting that they can dispense with a lot of “work” through the courseware and focus on experiential and student-centered activities in class. In fact, forums and other tools in Moodle are allowing them to “prime the pump” for high-order activities. Great stuff.
Steve
1/25/2006
See, now that’s what it should all be about. If the things that were traditionally taught in the classroom in the past could be done more efficiently through technology, well that certainly frees up a lot of time, doesn’t it? How to fill that time? Maybe critical thinking skills, or high order activities, or in the vernacular of the RSS initiates, more time to Rip, Mix, and Mash your learning.
[...] in Story, Meaning Steve Dembo started something with “Podcasting vs. L [...]
Mike Simpson
2/2/2006
It seems to me that a stratight lecture ought to be delivered over a podcast. When I went to college I used to skip classes all of the time. I did just fine. I simply had to figure out who was going to read from the book and then I didn’t go. I read just fine. I suspect college today isn’t much different. I teach high school math now. I don’t know how much a straight podcast would help me, but a video cast might come in handy. The problem is that most students that I teach aren’t disciplined enough to watch the cast and process it. I would love it if I didn’t have to spend 2/5 of my classes lecturing, there are so many more engaging acitivies we could be doing. My challenge now is to help today’s high school students develop the habit of self-learning. I’m ok with self-learning now, but I’m 33, at 16 or 18 or even 21 I don’t think I would have been successful with it. I think its a worthwhile struggle though, for me and them. 
Jim
2/3/2006
I agree with Casey that college is an endurance test. College is a business and they can make more money by piling on as many classes as possible. Perhaps public schools are too. If a school allows students to work at their own pace, and students graduate at 16 or 17, they lose money. Or gasp, they graduate at semester of the senior year and the track or baseball coach loses athletes.
Martin
1/7/2007
Hello,
I am interested in creating a unified website consisting of lectures from all accredited colleges. Does such a site exist?
-Martin
Cindy
11/26/2008
I am a high school math teacher that vodcasts. I saw your example with your cellphone and was inspired to “figure it out” to help students who are taking a dual enrollment math class. My students are now able to watch the mp4 at lunch or through itunes at home. I love it! I just want my kids to master the material – I am not particular about the exact time and location.
[...] digital media over live, classroom interaction. Of course, this raises another question, which Steve Dembo articulated so well, “If the student could just as easily get all the information from a podcast, [...]
[...] Are you wasting class time? Posted on March 11, 2009 by tjbarrett Found this blog post at http://www.teach42.com/2006/01/24/podcast-versus-lecture-shootout/ [...]
Terry
5/6/2009
Cindy, I agree with you. I want students to master the material. If you can podcast and students can use it to master the material so much the better. By podcasting or vodcast, students could listen to the lecture over and over until they could make sense of it. I think of how many times I’ve gone over my notes from a seminar or workshop I’ve attended and they just didn’t make sense. At the time the notes I took did make sense, if the seminar/workshop was podcast I could go back and listen to the parts I wanted to remember.
It’s tought sometimes to accept technology. If all you’re doing is lecturing, why should someone have to sit and listen to it at that time? Why can’t they listen to it at a time that’s more convient for them. One of the reasons that online courses are becoming so popular is that you can do the work when you have the time to do it and not a given time.
Online Classes
11/22/2009
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11/30/2009
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12/10/2009
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