Lectures and Seminars
Instructors often ask, “Is a live lecture preferable to a pre-recorded lecture?” In the realm of online teaching and learning, pre-recorded content is always preferable to live lectures because students can watch or listen, and re-watch or re-listen, at their own pace. Pre-recorded content also increases accessibility because it eliminates the need for ample internet bandwidth and expensive data plans. Additionally, power outages no longer become a source of panic because it’s not necessary to be “live” at a specific time. It can be very challenging to find a perfect time when all students (around the world) can join a live lecture and this coordination can become a substantial amount of work for you. Pre-recorded content allows students to access the class regardless of potential substantial barriers.
Length of Recorded Lectures
Recorded lectures for an online class should not be as long as they would normally be in your in-person class. Depending on the nature of the subject and their purpose, online lectures can vary from 5-20 minutes each, versus the one to two hours for traditional, in-person ones. Although there isn’t a confirmed standard for student attention, researchers in this area agree that students are more likely to watch shorter videos in the online environment. Keep in mind that students can re-play a recorded lecture so there is no need for repetition. With practice, shorter lectures are possible. Create a script in advance to assist you to focus on key points and to keep you on track when you are recording. Where you feel a lecture needs to be longer, separate it into two or three parts, for instance three 10-minute sections, or two 8-minute sections.
The purpose of an online lecture should be to share with students conceptual framing, to help students to understand where their focus should be directed, to provide some examples, and to indicate your own and others’ key perspectives on, interests in, and experiences with, an area of study.
Mini lectures can also be utilized to highlight key points of a text, so students know where to focus their attention as they read. You can also present key questions students can consider as they read a text or engage with homework assignments. These are all aspects of a lecture that would be difficult for students to obtain effectively and efficiently elsewhere and should provide a foundation for their learning in your course.
Alternatives to Synchronous Lectures
If you do decide to bring students together for synchronous seminars or discussions, creating opportunities for engagement in a variety of ways with you, with each other, and with the material will assist students’ learning. If you ask students to meet in smaller groups together outside of class time, it might also be possible to have shorter synchronous sessions with the larger group where representatives from the smaller groups share summaries of their discussion. (Although this could also be done effectively asynchronously through discussion boards or students’ short video notes.) Ideally such synchronous sessions would be recorded for those students who are unable to attend. It is important to ensure that students in your class are aware that they are being recorded during a synchronous session and to provide alternatives where students do not wish to be recorded.
Online Seminars
If it's necessary to provide synchronous content, like seminars, you may wish to organize students into small groups and provide them with questions or assignments that they collaborate on either synchronously or asynchronously. If possible, limit the requirement of synchronous engagement. Instead, offer opportunities for students to do both if they, as a group, want to. You can create rooms in Collaborate that student groups can use if they need to connect and chat, but also offer spaces like discussion boards or wikis for students to engage asynchronously. This provides flexibility and decreases potential learning barriers.
If you’re providing video tutorials that are synchronous, try breaking students into groups based on time zones or availability. This might mean that a TA or instructor will be giving additional tutorials late at night or early in the morning, but you’re likely increasing accessibility for the learners. To coordinate these groups, it’s helpful to send out a short survey to students to obtain information about their time zone and availability.
Even though face-to-face courses require a specific time to be on campus, online learning in our current context can be more flexible. Students are often living with multiple people who are working remotely, they may have caregiving responsibilities, and they’re certainly experiencing higher levels of stress. It’s very likely that students won't be able to be present “in class” at a specific time. Using synchronous online teaching methods requires you to find a balance between what you can expect students to commit to and the amount of student coordination that you’re willing to take on.