Improving Student Outcomes With Lecture Capture Technology
By Clive Young, on 14 December 2011
Dr Bob van den Brand from Tilburg University in the Netherlands yesterday presented a fascinating webinar on “Improving student outcomes with lecture technology”. He uses the Mediasite system to capture his accountancy lectures and had devised a simple pedagogical wrapper which adds value to the recorded material, a framework he calls ‘i-Star learning’. He believes that lectures have an important role in conveying passion and drama about the subject, but also that is easy to add more educational value.
So, in addition to the ‘normal’ captured lecture, Dr van den Brand creates short (10-15’) video ‘snippets’ to explain concepts that he knows the students find difficulty with. These are short YouTube-like presentations. Snippets can be filmed in a studio, and Dr van den Brand likes to make them fun and engaging, but I thought a similar outcome could also be created via desktop capture from a PowerPoint or tablet – for drawing diagrams and equations . Students can pick and choose snippets depending on their knowledge and interest.
To reinforce the content, short quizzes are added, using the institutional VLE. These short tests provide immediate feedback (either text or video) but can also be used to keep record students’ marks and progress.
To clear up any remaining difficulties, students can ask questions. This can also be done online using a virtual classroom such as our own Blackboard Collaborate.
The final aspect of the i-Star framework, though not specifically part of the lecture capture package is to provide immediate results to students following exams, again with an opportunity to ask follow-up questions.
Dr van den Brand considered there was a marked increase both in student satisfaction “students will be happy” but also performance; he reported a 20% increase in marks in one accountancy module. He stressed that this did not involve a huge investment in time; “Start with the three most difficult issues in your module and make a little block, it takes 2-3 hours and the students will love you for it”.
The webinar, Improving Student Outcomes With Lecture Capture Technology, is now available for on-demand viewing.
Wow! Dr. Bob’s way of improving student outcomes with lecture technology is a great way of catching up student’s attention as well as giving those students time for advanced reading. This is a good opportunity not just for students but also for IT Support London to be informed how well technology be used.