Are you wasting class time?

Found this blog post at http://www.teach42.com/2006/01/24/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.

 

My thoughts…… Whilst I am not teaching at university level, I am finding in my Studies of religion class (HSC level in Australia) – which is taught both in a distant mode via Moodle and a blended mode (2 periods face to face teaching and 1 period in a private study room a week) – the blended students are coming to class with more understanding of the current work due to the fact that they have done the preliminary work already in their own time. This means that I can immediately launch into a discussion with them or undertake a higher level activity due to the students already being on the front foot in terms of their understanding of the topic.  I am finding that I can even take slight diversions in class or spend time doing an experimental or practical activity as I know the students will catch up on the ‘work’ in their own time. This method has proven itself to be effective with one of my students recieving 98% as her mark for her HSC in studies of religion.

So I agree with Steve Dembo that we need to ensure class time is not wasting the time of  either the students or the teachers  or both!!