Does recording and then podcasting lectures help learning? I always expected it would be a waste of time that might encourage students to fall behind. According to research I am wrong.
From an email newsletter that I like about teaching called Tomorrow’s Professor I learned about a report from the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching on Lecture Capture: A Guide for Effective Use (PDF). The authors, Erping Zhu and Inger Bergom, make some interesting points:
- There is no evidence that student attend less.
- Students can concentrate on listening instead of taking notes when there is going to be a podcast posted. This is a good thing – note taking is not learning.
- Students use podcasts to go over difficult ideas – they can back up and replay. They use captured lectures to review (instead of notes?)
- Videocasts can be more effective than live lectures because students at live lectures can be distracted by the prof (or others), while with video they can concentrate on the slide.
Until now I didn’t think capturing lectures would be worth it, but watching students slavishly take notes at the expense of learning has always bothered me. Telling students to not take notes doesn’t do any good. If they can count on podcasts or video then they might relax and think about the issues.