My “audience” as I was recording the first online lecture for the new term
Yesterday, I spent six hours pre-recording a puny little lecture of 15 minutes for the postgraduate “Literacies” unit I’m teaching this term. The unit has gone fully online this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and I have been planning for interactive delivery in a variety of formats.
One element in the overall mix is a podcast series. I’ve taught the unit a couple of times already so have the content down pat and figured all I needed to do was sit down and deliver my lecture into a microphone. It did not turn out to be a smooth experience.
The content I was covering yesterday – features of written vs spoken language – usually takes about 40 minutes of class time to deliver. That includes asking questions, taking student responses, and summarizing those responses. A standard teacher question-student response-teacher feedback cycle.
Without dialogue, the lecture shrunk to not much more than a third of the time it would normally take but producing it blew out by about nine times.
Most of this production time is a one-off, as I needed to learn how to use Adobe Audition and spent a lot of time designing an intro and an outro, and figuring out how to overlay them with a signature tune (I chose a few bars of Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto :-). Including a signature tune is a playful option that is obviously not strictly necessary but was fun to learn.
Quite a bit of time also went to editing in order to smooth out bloopers.
Hot tip: If you are unhappy with anything you’ve recorded, don’t stop recording. Instead, pause, click your tongue three times, and repeat whatever went wrong. This way you can easily identify the bits you’ll need to cut in your voice editor.
I may have smoothed out major bloopers but the final product still doesn’t please me and doesn’t meet my usual standards of work. I’m dissatisfied with recurring disfluencies, with too much detail in some parts and not enough in others, a joke that I started and then trailed off because it seemed silly delivering it to the unmoved microphone.
Seeing how much time I invested, I’m wondering where did I go wrong?
Maybe it’s not me at all but the problem is the genre of the academic lecture?
What’s wrong with lectures?
Lectures are odd creatures at the intersection of reading and writing, as a quick look at the table listing the key differences between written and spoken language will show.
| Written language | Spoken language |
| Visual | Oral |
| Technologically mediated | Embodied |
| Distant interactants (across time and space) | Co-present interactants |
| Decontextualized | Contextualized |
| Durable | Ephemeral |
| Scannable | Only linearly accessible |
| Planned/highly structured | Spontaneous/loosely structured |
| Syntactically complex | Syntactically simple |
| Formal | Informal |
| Abstract | Concrete |
| Monologue | Dialogue |
The academic lecture, including in its pre-recorded version, is obviously a form of spoken language. However, most of its characteristics are typically associated not with spoken but with written language:
- The lecture is technologically mediated (recording device at my end, audio player at yours).
- Speaker and audience are distant across time and space (I recorded the lecture yesterday in my home and students will listen to it at other times and places).
- In terms of context, the lecture sits somewhere in the middle between high and low context (it’s part of a unit taught in the Applied Linguistics program at Macquarie University but it could be taught in any Applied Linguistics program in an English-medium program).
- The recording is durable and not as fleeting as the spoken word usually is.
- The lecture is not quite as scannable as a written text but you can certainly stop and rewind if there is something you didn’t understand, or jump ahead if you get bored.
- The lecture is planned and tightly structured.
- In terms of syntactic complexity and formality, I was aiming for a simple and casual style – the desired “conversational tone” of a podcast. However, on listening back, I discovered that I used a garden path sentence to exemplify one, and I also used words such as “therefore” and “thus” – clear traces of written language.
- I don’t even need to mention that the content of the lecture is relatively abstract (“Features of written language”) and that I delivered a monologue.
These mismatched criteria produce a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” genre. For instance, I did not write up the lecture beforehand and so did not read out a script. In face-to-face teaching, I don’t need one and for pre-recordings the general advice seems to be that a script will make the lecture sound unnatural. Even so, I’m now I’m beating myself up for uneven delivery – there are a few unfinished thoughts and dysfluencies.
How did such an awkward genre become the main mode of university teaching?
Miniature drawing of a medieval lecture (Image credit: British Library)
The academic lecture has its origins in the European Middle Ages, when both literacy – the ability to read and write – and books were scarce. In a world where writing is cheap and literacy is almost universal, it is hard to imagine just how scarce they were back then. Only the most valuable information was committed to writing. Hand-written manuscripts took years to produce and books were a rare and extremely valuable commodity. Online courses, textbooks, even notebooks were still far in the future.
To teach the valuable information committed to manuscripts, early university education therefore consisted of a “lecturer” reading to an audience. A lecturer is literally a “reader”, a title still used in UK academia today for what is an Associate Professor in the Australian and US systems. The lecturer read the set text out loud, sometimes providing running commentary or explanations as they went along.
That explains why the lecture is such an odd cross-over genre between written and spoken language. It’s a written text read out loud.
What it doesn’t explain is why we are reverting to this mode of teaching as we transition from face-to-face to online teaching. The best explanation I can come up with is that technical affordances of the digital world have changed both written and spoken language in fundamental ways, and we are all still working out how to harness them best for learning.
What do you think about pre-recorded lectures? And what are your most and least favorite teaching genres? Have they changed between face-to-face and online?
As for me, I’ll try and mix genres as much as possible. Even if they make me cringe, I’ll keep podcasts in the mix for now, mainly because I want my students to experience another form of writing to learn: note taking. To commit something to memory and process it deeply, writing continues to be the medium of choice.
“To reach the mind, knowledge has to flow through the hand,” as one of my lecturers in teacher training kept insisting.
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I can completely relate! I was teaching ESL at a TAFE when we all went online in 2020. I (like you) very quickly had to adapt my usual 6 hours per day of teaching into a 2 hour pre-recorded lecture with powerpoint that students could watch on their own time at home. I also spent SO MANY hours trying to prep just one lecture. I really learned to rely on the skills I learned in one of my undergraduate degrees (theatre) to make my lectures as engaging as possible. Something I also had to learn to do was anticipate what questions students might have as they watched the lecture and then answer those questions within the allocated time. Despite all the hard work, I now really enjoy creating the hybrid academic lecture/podcast!
Thanks, Brynn! Theater sounds like such a valuable background for a teacher to have!
Hi Ingrid,
Thank you for your reflection about teaching online. I think every teacher will face this problem more or less in this period of time. But as a student, I like the pre-recorded lecture since it saves much time on the road to the classroom, also, it is relatively shorter. After 3 sessions at Macquarie University, watching and listening to online courses which are pre-recorded, I feel it is a good way for us to learn automatically. For example, we may pause at the place we don’t understand and play it again and again until we figure it out, we can also record our questions and post them on the discussion forum. Anyway, it is a new way but quite effective for me.
Thanks, Chen! I’m so glad the format works for you!
Hi Ingrid,
Thanks for letting me join this conversation belatedly!
Academic lectures definitely are a weird genre. In any other context, being talked at for long stretches of time seems highly unappealing if not downright antisocial, but I will quite happily sit through a one or two-hour lecture delivered by an authoritative speaker. There is such a barrage of information available online today that it is a welcome relief to become a passive recipient of (professionally curated) knowledge for a while.
Not too passive though: I discovered that old-school note-taking is still as important as ever after trying to listen to the lecture like a podcast (ie. on in the background whilst cooking dinner). It turns out that, while lectures are a performance (as Hanna so nicely put it), they still require some active audience participation in order to get the quiz answers right!
Thanks, Claire! Good point about an authoritative lecture as a relief from the barrage of information. I am very aware that I nowadays teach in competition to everything that’s on the internet. Mostly, I have thought about this as a challenge to make my teaching more attractive. I hadn’t considered that a lecture without lots of bells and whistles might be appealing in itself. Thanks for giving me a new perspective 🙂
Thanks Ingrid – this post has given me a long overdue realisation; the reason I have always loved Academic lectures is because they are a performance. Except instead of being a theatrical performance they are more like performed ideas, with the speaker embodying the identity of a scholar and reading a kind of script. The class/audience is part of it too, and their reactions and questions are part of the show. What makes them so pleasurable is that complex ideas are made engaging and somehow more real when delivered by a speaker whose speech is charismatic or otherwise holds your attention. The perfect mix, to me, of the written and spoken modes. This is something many are missing at the moment, whether its academic lectures, live music or comedy.
However, this new world brings new pleasures and it’s been wonderful to read everyone’s comments and the replies. One great advantage is that online communication, when its not in real time, is a more level playing field and people like me, who love to talk, have to sit back and listen for a change! I’m very much looking forward to discussing the readings with those of you who are coming to the online tutorial tomorrow :-).
Thanks, Hanna! A good lecture is the performance of thinking!
Hi Ingrid, thank you so much for your pre-recording lecture and your writing content. It is an effective and interesting topic in this time that technology has assisted the teaching and learning system. Both spoken and written features can assist learners in more understating and build a clearer imagination in that content. Because of the pandemic, we can see other teaching and learning materials that improve the classroom connection without only teaching in the classroom.
I have experienced once in recording audio with PowerPoint last semester, I have tried so hard to make my lecturer understand the content. I have tried to make my voice clear in several times by re-recording over 3 times each page. However, this way can boost the education system that easy to help both teacher and student connection. Although I live in an era that technologies have influenced our daily life, I still have problems and not good at using technologies in some situations.
I prefer to learn face to face more than an online class because the concentration on online class is very difficult for me. If I study on campus, It feels like the classroom environment will push me focusing on lecturer and discussion with classmates. At this time, it can mention that both teachers and students have to build a high effort in learning and teaching. However, an online classroom is a new experience that is very useful and easily connects between teacher and student.
I really enjoy reading your writing and looking forward to the next topic
Thank you so much
Thanks, Chalermkwan! You are right about concentration. Concentration is incredibly important to learning, and devices are distracting. In f2f teaching, I ask my students to put away their devices but keeping everyone’s attention has become more and more difficult over the years. I think even the most engaging teacher has a hard time competing with the temptation to check social media feeds these days … This is one of the reasons that engaging with written texts and commenting on them in this forum is such an important part of this unit. It allows everyone to attend to the materials at their convenience and commenting requires a certain level of concentration 🙂
Hi Ingrid,
This research blog post is quite interesting as it refers to current changes in our teaching and learning experiences due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With current advancement in technology today, our education continues from face-to-face learning to online learning. Every change comes with both positive and negative outcomes. With social-distancing practices in place, encourages students to minimize social gatherings in close proximity including study groups and in-class activities. On the other hand, this minimizes social interactions among peers and other students. Pre-recorded lectures are a great as it allows students to be flexible with their schedule. Mixing genres will be interesting, as most academic lectures consist of ‘typing’ rather than hand-written note-taking.
Thanks
Thanks, D.L! We’ll get to studies that look at the different learning outcomes of note-taking by hand vs on a device later in the term. As always there are pros and cons but the research is consistent that digital technologies aren’t as great for learning as everyone thinks they are, mostly because they impede concentration. Here is a quick overview if you want to read ahead.
Thank you very much for all your effort to record the first podcast. I found it very organised, informative and interesting. The music was a great touch. The history of academic language was fascinating and understanding its origins was insightful.
I had to do a short presentation last term with 8-9 slides and then present them orally. After I spent a lot of time writing them I thought recording the oral presentation would just take a couple hours but in the end it took a week. Having to listen to my voice over and over and re-record my slides was a very painful experience.
My preferred style for lectures at this time is zoom lectures, with the lecturer using visual slides and having group discussions in small breakout groups. This way I can see the professors face, visual aids, interact with other students and ask questions at appropriante times. I also like that they are recorded so I can go back and rewatch them to fill in my notes. Audio recordings are the most challenging for me as listening is my weakest learning style.
I really like our quote:” “To reach the mind, knowledge has to flow through the hand” as I am a compulsive note taker and really find this is an essential part of my learning process. I’m really looking forward to learning together.
Thanks, Ally! Hope to see you in the Zoom tutorial tomorrow 🙂
Hi Ingrid
I understand the odd feeling of talking to what feels like a vacuum – I had a similar feeling last semester when I had to prepare a ‘presentation’ which was essentially a set of power-point slides to which I had to add my voice. I disliked the process of not having someone to actually connect with while communicating and felt it was a very unnatural process! I enjoyed you lecture though. I don’t mind listening to pre-recorded lectures and I quite appreciate mistakes as it makes it feel more natural. What I do still find strange, however, is listening to a voice without a face. I am used to listening to podcasts, but for a pre-recorded lecture doesn’t feel like a podcast for me and for some reason I miss seeing the person behind the information being conveyed. Strange.
Thanks, Monica! If you want to see my face during a lecture, try this video, where I talk about “sociolinguistic complexity in a multilingual society”. The thing about adding my face to the videos is that “looking good”, i.e. professional, in front of the camera, adds a whole additional lawyer of complexity. You need to dress up, wear make-up, look at the camera all the time, think about lighting, add a teleprompter etc etc. Essentially you need a studio set-up and a support cast. Academics don’t have that and so usually look dowdy or worse …
Hi Ingrid, this is very interesting research blog post highlighting the current mode of teaching and learning during pandemic. You’ve made a very significant point stating that,”Lectures are odd creatures at the intersection of reading and writing”. As You stated the features of lectures that falls in the category of writing and also your point that lectures have historically evolved from reading out a written manuscripts to an audience, it seems very convincing that lectures are not merely part of oral communication rather they are more dense and complex than that. you’ve listed your experience as a lecturer in the present mode of learning. I would like to share mine as a student. As we are not connected to each other in the same time and space , it is very difficult to catch up with the information that is being delivered in distant mode. As I am from a different background, where we almost do not use technology as part of our learning, it is very difficult for me to follow everything that is coming to me from technological sources. In face to face learning,I can stay focussed and ask questions on the spot, discuss with peer and many other aspect would make the idea clear, but now it is my individual effort with everything. opening web links, reading ,and reproducing in written form. We can actually say that now learning is also an intersection between reading and writing.
Thanks, Kinza! You make an excellent point about the pandemic accelerating individualism and isolation further. It is a worrying trend because, as Alex has noted, humans are social beings, after all …
Dear Ingrid,
Thank you for the podcast-like first lecture! Since no imagery was used, it helped me to be more focused and alert to what you were delivering on the audio (I am always grateful for it since, as a visual learner primarily, it keeps both my listening and note-taking skills to a good level 🙂 ). I am fond of pre-recorded lectures in general because, as you mentioned, I can stop and/or rewind to a specific segment as I please. I must say I did this last semester for one of my classes as the information flow was more than generous and it worked out just fine. I think most of us students have gotten used to the face-to-face teaching genre, however, having the lecture recorded afterwards gave us some support to revisit our notes.
Since humans are social beings, there is always a “missing factor” in pre-recorded lectures, especially during these times of isolation. Adaptation is key more than ever for students who, like me, are used to face-to-face lectures.
Thanks, Alex! You are right, adaptation is key. And reflection is key to successful adaptation 🙂
Hi Ingrid,
It is interesting to see that even a seasoned professional like yourself, faces challenges in recording a presentation. Last session we were required to deliver an annotated bibliography as a recorded presentation. What I thought at first would be a quick alternative to a written task ended up taking much longer than writing would and ultimately less effective.
I agree that when you take out the questions and the rephrasing of student responses etc. common in the face to face lectures, you are left with very little in terms of time but I think it is important to note that in terms of information, what is left is significant. I don’t agree that you went wrong! I enjoyed the lecture very much and remained engaged from start to finish. Looking forward to the next one!
Peter
Thanks, Peter! Glad you liked the lecture 🙂
A spoken bibliography seems like another tricky cross-over …
Reading your post on academic lecture reminds me of my personal experience of recording lessons for primary school children during COVID19 home learning for 10 weeks in NSW. I was always in support of utilising technological support as much as possible while delivering lessons in primary context. But during home learning we were mostly dependent on technology for majority of the time to deliver our lessons which was completely a different experience. At the same time, it opened a whole new technological world for us teachers! Within a short period of time we had to train ourselves with latest technological apps and tools to recreate our face to face version of teaching. I personally used ‘Screencastify’ recording tool to produce my lessons. I also used IMovie and Power Point audio video recording to record lessons. Using screencastify made me to record my lessons at a go which I found easier than the others, but I had to attempt several times to have a smooth 5-10 mins lessons. No wonder it is such a hard job to reproduce academic lecture and covering all the contents relying on only audio-visual tools! As an external student I rely on recorded lectures and videos, so it is not new to me and I enjoyed participating in Zoom Tutorial whenever I had time in the last semester. Actually recorded lectures filled the gap of face to face delivery in many ways and helped us to learn in our own pace. But combination of both is the best way to learn!
Thanks, Nusrat! The pandemic sure has been a steep learning curve for all of us, on so many levels …
Thank you for your pre-recording lecture, which is informative and thoughtful content about academic lectures and genre. This is interesting to realise the features of both written and spoken language. I had the experience of recording my voice to explain content about teaching Japanese for my students as my part-time job. I agree with you that a teacher has the effort to produce the recording lecture, such as editing and remaking, to make students understand contents easily.
As students, I prefer to attend face-to-face classes because they can comprehend the content easily with visual information, such as gesture and facial expression, which can assist learners in understanding meaning. However, I have realised that an online lecture has some advantages during the current situation. For instance, the online one can stop it and repeat it to understanding the meaning. It tends to help the listeners, especially international students, to obtain the knowledge from the content.
Thanks, Yuta! I hear you, and others who made a similar point, but I’m wondering whether gesture and facial expression is not overrated as a way to support comprehension in higher education …
In teacher education programs, students are taught how to plan a lesson and to consider important factors that play crucial role in successful teaching-learning process. What is missing, in my opinion, in these courses is lack of emphasis on emotions involved in teaching jobs from planning to performing in class.
This post is an interesting one to provide great insight into what is going on in teacher/lecturers’ mind and challenges are faced by them, not just technical issues, but also emotional and mental ones. I must admit that I prefer classic ways of receiving education, being in actual classroom and interacting with others. That being said, I can’t deny the advantages of recorded lectures, such as having access to materials all the time, and listening and taking notes at my own pace without missing important points.
Thanks, Soudeh! You are right to point out that every mode has advantages and disadvantages, and it’s important to be cognizant of the affordances and constraints of each mode and format.
Thank you so much for putting so much effort to make the pre-recorded lectures for us. This week’s lecture is concise and informative. The content is easy to retain. I really enjoy the record with your clear voice and nice intro & outro music.
Like the majority of students, I prefer on-campus classes. I miss the face-to-face interactions with classmates and the professor. Though the Internet has been dominating our lives for decades, online learning is a totally new experience for me. Right now I’m trying to get used to it.
Thanks, T! I’m glad you enjoyed the music (I wasted so much time figuring out how to overlay the music track onto the voice track 😉
Good point that using digital communication for non-professional purposes hasn’t necessarily prepared us to use it for professional purposes!
Thank you, Ingrid for sharing your experience with us. I’ve never considered the written language features of the lecture until I read your post. To me, I prefer interactive and casual lecture in which the lecturer shares his own knowledge rather than reading merely from the slides. I find pre-recorded lecture is hard to follow because of the lack of visual things, and I often get distracted by things surrounding me. The change from face-to-face to online learning is not a bad experience for me since the Zoom session is quite interesting and useful. It is easier to share our ideas and questions in a Zoom session than in a large classroom. Besides, I have chances to discuss with external students who are experienced and knowledgeable teachers from many cultural backgrounds.
Thanks, Audrey! Good to hear you are enjoying Zoom sessions. Sounds like a mix of formats works best for you.
Hello Ingrid
First, I would thank you very much for spending this long time to present this record to us, I am really appreciating your effort.
However, by talking about written VS spoken language, I think about the infants and toddlers when they start talking, actually they depending totally on the spoken language, in the beginning they listening then they move to another phase when they parents support this spoken language with images and they try to embodied it for them. This would lead me to the importance of the spoken Language, and It’s huge role in the education, as well as literacies.
Do you agree with me?
Thanks, Arakah! You are already ahead of the curve: we’ll get to the relationship between spoken and written language in education in a few weeks. If you want to read ahead, the set reading will be
Heath, Shirley Brice. (1982). What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school. Language in Society, 11(1), 49-76.
Ingrid, I really enjoyed the pre-recorded lecture, especially when I compared it to other recordings I have listened to. While I have always preferred f2f lectures, I am doing my postgrad as an external student and have had to rely on recordings. In my experience, I lose focus during recorded lectures that are upto 2 hours long and interactive (between the lecturer and students who attend via zoom). As I am not able to participate, I find it very challenging and wonder at the end if I got much out of it. Also, I find it difficult to just listen to voices. If I could see the lecturer as they spoke, I think I would feel like I was participating. Your pre-recorded lecture was really great, in that it delivered important information in 15 minutes. It may be because of my particular circumstances but I got more out of it than I have from the longer lectures and I was certainly more engaged.
This was consistent whit my own experience of recording things. Early in the transition to online teaching (due to COVID19), I was writing scripts for videos for students and teachers. When I asked my colleagues for feedback on my drafts, I was told by almost everyone to shorten the videos as much as possible, even for teaching staff. I wonder if this is a reflection of our fragmented attention spans and a modern need for fast delivery, as well as the technology itself.
Thanks, Tazin! That’s good to hear 🙂
When I did the combined f2f for internal & echo for external students in the past, I was always very aware that this really left out external students; and they seemed a bit like an afterthought in the design of the combined units. Maybe centering external students and designing units specifically for online delivery constitutes another opportunity resulting from the pandemic …
After listening to both the lecture and reading this article, I have now understood the difficulty of standing in front of an audience and needing to recite your work in front of them! I take my hat off to all lecturers for the tremendous work they put in on a daily basis. In all honesty, listening to a lecture rather than being there in person is a tedious task for a person like me who prefers a hands-on experience, even when they are listening to someone else speak. When I listen to something being recited to me, whether it be an audiobook or podcast, I tend to zone out more than when someone is physically speaking to me, as I am not 100% engaged in what is beings said. This occurs with lectures as well. The only plus side I may add to recorded lectures is that in case someone misses an important point, you can always go back and listen to it again.
Thanks, Christina! Obviously lectures are not ideal – hard work for teachers/speakers AND students/listeners, and not particularly effective for teaching/learning. Having said that, I’m really pleased with the “conversations” this particular lecture has created on this forum. Better student engagement than on any previous occasion when I taught this material face-to-face … 🙂
First of all, thank you for writing such an interesting post! And I know you’re trying hard to teach this class. Thank you so much for trying so hard in such a difficult Covid situation. In terms of the pre-recorded lectures, I think it is an essential element, especially in non-face-to-face classes. Unlike real-time video lectures through zoom, I think pre-recorded lectures can deliver 100% of the lecturer’s teaching because it can prevent or avoid unexpected situations (e.g. barking dogs or crying babies etc). However, for me, the pre-recorded lectures with audio only can create confusion in imagining the contents. So, in my opinion, if there are some PPT slides or images for understanding, it would be much easier to study contents and be useful to many students.
Thanks, Subin! Just finished recording the next lecture – this time with slides. So you can look forward to visuals next week 🙂
First of all, thank you for giving us such interesting perspective to look at genre and academic lectures. This is an interesting way to think about the current academic lectures in this situation caused by COVID-19.
As other people said, I agree that there are a lot of demerits and loss of pre-recorded lecture (online lecture) such as visual information. Thus, I also prefer face-to-face lessons. However, I personally believe that there are still some advantages of the online academic lectures. For example, the pre-recorded lecture can be stopped, rewound and skipped by listeners. It probably helps for the learners, especially international students, to deeply comprehend the contents of lecture.
Thanks, Kyohei! Arundhati Roy wrote an essay early in the pandemic, where she compares it to a portal. I like that metaphor a lot and think it’s true for teaching and learning, as well: we can either cling to our old ways and hope to a speedy return to “the normal classroom” or we can see it as an opportunity to imagine and create something new. And finding ways to improve the inclusion of international students and, more generally, cater to a greater diversity of learners and learning styles is one such opportunity, in my opinion.
This post has definitely opened me to new knowledge on the genre of academic lectures! The more I think about it, the more I realized that lectures actually possess features of both written and spoken language, which makes it sit exactly in between. This is how I imagined things: let’s say that if we put written and spoken language as two ends of a horizontal line, then the genre of “lecture” must be somewhere around the midpoint of the line. The fun thing is, face-to-face learning allows the genre of “lecture” to lean more towards the spoken language end, whereas pre-recorded lecture draws the genre closer to the written language. Either way, the lectures are very informative, and I enjoy both experiences! Though I do miss my friends and miss the moments of teachers’ and learners’ humor-in-action, I must say that being able to pause and rewind recordings allows me to take notes better than ever, especially the ones with ppt. Thank you so much for putting so much effort into making the pre-recorded lectures!
Thanks, Lilly! Great observation that f2f vs pre-recorded pull the lecture in different directions on the spoken-written continuum!
Thank you for guiding us to consider academic lecture in different angles. I had an experience on recording my voice to illustrate some points of a project when I was an undergraduate student. I totally agree with you that the effort behind a recording product is much more than what it shows because you would constantly replay your voice and modify it to make it better to understand. However, I do not think lecturers play a role as a “reader” merely. According to my few career experience, teacher should focus more on how to broaden students’ perspectives by introducing lecturers’ comprehension and make students obtain knowledge efficiently during instructional activities instead of repeating what the book says. Reading a professional book can make teaching process seem systematic, but it is really hard for students who are freshman in this field to catch up. So as for me, I prefer interactive discussion forums or conversations. Thank you for looking at my comment.
Thanks, H! I agree that teaching needs to be interactive but there is a lot to be said for a good synthesis of relevant knowledge in the form of a lecture, as part of a mix of teaching activities 🙂
Firstly, I would like to say thank you to you for your pre-recorded lecture, which is very informative and easy to digest. And, I think it is a good start for this unit. With the outbreak of the pandemic, pre-recorded lectures are very useful because they help me get ready for the new knowledge covered in the week. I mean I have some time to prepare in advance. Last semester, I had to record two presentations via my microphone and laptop, which was extremely odd. Each of them was just about 8-10 minutes long, but it took me about 2 hours to complete each recording. I needed to pause, edit many times to produce the ones of my best. Although my speaking skills are not so good, I prefer to do my presentations in front of my audience. I mean I can see how they feel, how they react to adjust my speaking accordingly. Anyway, I’m getting used to learning in this way!
Thanks, Banie! You are right about preparation. We’ve mostly spoken about the disadvantages of online learning so far but there are also advantages. Being able to work in your own time and at your own pace is one of them 🙂
First of all, this is a very interesting reflection regarding how the method of teaching has globally changed. And I believe that all stakeholders in education are trying to adapt to the current situation.
Regarding the pre-recording lectures, I believe that it loses one of essential aspects of spoken communication i.e. the visualisation. As a listener, I just imagined the picture of the story or subject you narrated in my mind. The modes have reduced from communication with both audio and visual in three-dimensional space into communication with audio only in two- or one-dimensional space (I am little bit confuse with what the pre-recorded lecture in). As a result, gesture, facial expression and other visual aspects that can help listeners to understand meanings in language are absent. Therefore, understanding the meanings from pre-recorded lectures is little bit challenging.
Thanks, Yudha! Reading gestures and facial expression is hard even during video conferencing. In a video conference you look most attentive when you look directly into the camera and you may seem distracted when you are actually looking at the image on the screen of the person who are talking to and paying attention to their facial expressions …
First of all, thank you for informative and thoughtful content about the pre-recorded lectures amid the outbreak of Covid. I never knew to deliver a smooth record, the teacher has to spend that much effort in modifying and editing the audio. 🙂
But still, I am not quite a fan of the pre-recorded lectures even though how convenient they offer for students not being able to attend zoom class, especially for part-time or external students. As you mentioned, the teachers seem to play a role as a “reader” not a lecture in the pre-recorded lessons. Moreover, the lessons are decontextualised and also comprise a wide range of complex structures and terms which are hardly explained clearly within a limited time frame. As a result, the student might feel tedious and stressful which is likely to make the learning process futile. That’s why I think on-campus lectures are still my preferable mode of studying. They could help me diligently go to the class to meet my friends, make me, maybe, more responsible with my study or reduce procrastination. I hope :))
Thanks, G! I agree that face-to-face teaching is preferable. After all, teaching is not simply transferring information from one brain to another. The best learning happens when people jointly construct knowledge.
Can I suggest you keep tabs on all those complex structures and terms that are causing you grief so that we can discuss them during Zoom tutorials? And we’ve also got some fun interactive activities coming up 🙂
Thank you, Ingrid. If there are some new terms, I will definitely raise the question during Zoom tutorials 🙂
G!
I can still remember vividly how hard it was for both of us to record our presentations! But at last, we did it! :))
It is very interesting to get a reflection of different types of teaching, and the advantages and disadvantages to different communication strategies. I feel written discussion boards and pre-recorded lectures are important as a mean of engaging students with the material and helps students prepare material for the (current) online tutorials. This reading is intriguing, it really reflects the awkwardness for both you as a convenor and for us as students, but really, we are all making the best of the situation, the efforts really help us out as students in these unprecedented times.
Thanks, Chris! I like how you acknowledge that everyone is doing their best 🙂
Exploring the affordances and limitations of different communication genres is something we’ll be doing a lot in this unit.
First of all, thank you for your effort to go through all the trouble recording the podcast for the sake of the students. It shows me just how much you devote to your career and I want to do the same.I like the fact that from recording a podcast , you can come up with the topic of this article.
The origin of the word ‘lecturer’ made me laughed thinking if there are some modern day lecturers that still read out loud their powerpoint slide without further explanation, they are likely to get complaints from the student. While medival lecturer were meant to do just that. This story also reminds me of how important knowledge is no matter how many time has passed.
Thanks, Vichuda! The art of teaching is to see a teachable moment in everything 🙂
I’ve always liked listening to the teacher’s talk rather than doing an activity. I learn the most by listening and seeing and to be able to ask questions and clarify as we go was my preferable way of learning. I think that might have been the main reason that I have very rarely skipped a class.
I have enrolled in an external study mode (way before covid). I knew I would not be able to attend classes, but I’ve always been looking forward to the lecture recording. Before covid it was recording done while conducting a class with the students, post covid there seem to be different ways of recording a lecture. I can say now that Zoom recording with other students participating is not my favourite as some students take up the recording time by asking questions sometimes not even related to the lecture. Since I cannot participate in those Zoom lectures because of my work commitments, I watch the recording and it may be a bit frustrating at times when the conversation goes off-topic. My favourite type of recording is PPT type notes (shared screen) with commentary, without other students’ participation. I find that type of lectures concise, clear, organised, on track, with visible text/pictures/graphs etc. easy to understand and remember the content. I find only audio recording bit challenging as it is difficult for me to focus only on listening. I find myself drifting away with my thoughts, and rewinding the recording a few times to get back to the point before drifting away.
Thanks, Moni! Next week up is a lecture with ppt 🙂
I never know about how a lecture was in the European Middle Ages, the post broaden my horizon. Pre-recorded lecture could be a new thing emerging with the development of the digital world today, but I may find it hard to get used to it. In that kind of lecture, just the lecturer is talking, no one would reply or comment. If I have questions, I can only ask the lecturer after the lecture finished, and I’m afraid I’ll sleep without giving any reaction to the lecturer. Nevertheless, the advantage of this kind of lecture is that I can have more time to take notes by pausing the video or audio. As for me, I prefer f2f learning or online learning through zoom by which I can have an interaction with my lecturer and classmates. That’s a feeling that pre-recorded lectures cannot give. Anyway, I’m gonna get used to pre-recorded lectures.
Thanks, Yuan! Zoom tutorials will definitely be part of the mix, too!
Reading the brief history above, and I finally make the connection with the words lecture and lecturer. How had that penny not dropped before?!
If you find the secret to overcoming these awkward tensions, Ingrid, please do let us know!! Perhaps podcasts “in-conversation” with a second presenter could be helpful, if that’s an option? Undoubtedly, like any other genre, it is one that will take time for us to develop confidence using.
Oh, it now makes sense to me why university students in England say they’re “reading” x subject – e.g. “I’m reading linguistics” instead of ‘studying’. I’ve wondered where that expression comes from. I always enjoyed sitting in large lecture theatres and having to rely on my note-taking skills to take in information. During my undergrad we spent a lot of time reviewing and exchanging notes, especially because our German studies lectures weren’t recorded (this was ten years ago…). As a visual learner, “To reach the mind, knowledge has to flow through the hand” rings very true. I also remember our lectures not being particularly interactive. The professor would waltz in and immediately begin talking/lecturing. This often felt intimidating, as we had little opportunity to ask questions in class. My experiences of face-to-face linguistics lectures at MQ was very different – much more interactive and engaging, inviting students to partake and bring their own experiences to the discussion. I find this approach very valuable and definitely more enjoyable.
And who wouldn’t want to go to a lecture which has its own trailer?! This term’s Literacies students are in for a huge treat… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkU73vSwkCU&feature=youtu.be
Thanks, Livia, for plugging the trailer 🙂 I’m pleased as punch to have taught myself the basics of imovie and Adobe Audition – the joys of literacy!