It's Not Actually About Me

This afternoon I met up with Dr. Michael Sweet, a fan of Roman history and the director of Instructional Development in the Center for Teaching and Learning at UT.   We chatted about flipping courses, teaching attitudes, team-based learning (one of his special interests), and discomfort in the classroom.  It was a great conversation for me and I wanted to write about some of the things that emerged for me.

We talked a lot about how the flipped class can create instructor discomfort.  Experienced instructors are pretty comfortable with standing in front of a group of students and delivering content, perhaps breaking up their content delivery with a few questions for the audience.  Of course, we weren't always comfortable with this mode of instruction.  It took practice, trial-and-error, and a lot of discomfort.  We looked to our own teachers as models to imitate.  After teaching a lecture-based course a few times, however, we realize that it's not so bad.  We have our Power Points (of course we fiddle with them each semester); we have our jokes; we have our "teaching persona".  We walk in, we entertain and instruct, and we leave.  The audience of students is often pleased with our performance.  Throughout, we are in almost control of the script the class will follow.  Sure, a few students may ask questions, but for the most part we say exactly what we had planned to say.  After a few semesters, we even know what questions the content will elicit and have well-crafted answers ready to go.

When I walk into my flipped classroom, armed with a PowerPoint and a plan for the discussion, I am aware that I have no idea what is going to happen.  We will start where I choose, but we will end where the discussion takes us.  It used to be that I ran the show, scripted the performance.  Now it's my students who do that.  Sure, I set the topic for discussion and get the ball rolling.  I stage interventions from time to time.  Often, though, I feel like I am trying to herd a clowder of wild cats.  This is a good thing.  This is what student-centered learning is all about.  It's an adjustment.  When the class discussion does not unfold exactly as I imagined it would, planned for it to do, I sometimes leave class feeling like I didn't do my job.  I have to remind myself that this sense of slight disorder is what a flipped class is all about.  I don't want to create the impression that my class is chaotic and discussions jump all over the place--not at all.  But it's certainly true that discussions take turns that are unexpected.  One of the big lessons for me in these first few weeks is that it is my job to come to class with a plan; and it is my job to be ready to abandon the plan and improvise at a moment's notice so long as learning is happening.  I have to remind myself of this every Monday and Wednesday as I make the walk from my office to my classroom.

One thing that has helped me in the transition from a professor-centered to a student-centered classroom has been to remember that, in a way, I've already taught the class.  The recorded lectures in which I deliver content are the backbone of the class.  If that's all they ever get from me, they've gotten a better version of this class than any other group of students.  Whatever else they get is a bonus; it's value-added.  If we don't cover absolutely everything I intended to cover in a particular class meeting, no problem.  Whatever we did do was a bonus.  They are also getting several other bonuses: an active discussion board on piazza.com, a Twitter feed with weekly Tweetchats, a class Facebook group.

In student-centered teaching, it's really not about me, it's about them.  It's not about what I am doing but about what they are learning.  I have long been a critic of the notion that good teaching can be equated with inspirational, charismatic performances at a lectern.  It's nonetheless been a challenge to rid myself of the belief that I can inspire students to learn through a witty, well-delivered lecture.  Even though I've sat in enough classrooms of very good teachers--watching their students surf the web, work on their math homework, and shop for a dress--to know that the focus has to be on student learning rather than faculty teaching, it's still difficult to fully embrace the consequences of that realization.   Good teaching has less to do with us (the teachers) and everything to do with our ability to increase student learning, however we may do that.  Dr. Eric Mazur addresses this in his talk "Confessions of a Converted Lecturer."

There is a lot of evidence-based research on student learning.  One very clear conclusion: active, engaged students learn and retain knowledge better than passive students listening to a lecture, no matter how talented the particular lecturer might be.  The challenge for an institution like UT Austin: turning a class of 400 students (or 200 or 800) into active learners.  The other challenge: persuading faculty, especially in liberal arts, that we can let go of our lecture-based mode of content delivery (or, really, remove it from the space of the classroom) and turn the classroom into a space for engaging our students in discussion and critical thinking--even if this means that, sometimes, we are going to feel a little out of control, uncomfortable, out of our element.  Because, after all, it's not about us; it's about our students.

Some Challenges Along the Way

I would be remiss if I did not address the challenges that came with flipping the Intro to Ancient Rome class.  I will write about the challenges of the flipped classroom in a separate post at a later date.  In this post, I want to touch on the challenges I faced during the filming of content delivery.

The Emotional Challenges:  I am a shy person by nature.  I don't like to be "out there" and I don't like feeling vulnerable (great TedTalk on vulnerability by Brene Brown) and exposed.  Yes, I'm a professor and I make myself vulnerable for a living, but it's still scary and uncomfortable.  Over the years, I've learned to tolerate and even feed off of the challenges of teaching a 200+ class of students.  I've learned to deal with the inevitable judgments and criticisms that are part of publishing one's research.  I tolerate the discomforts because I truly believe that my teaching and research benefit others--at least, I hear this often enough to keep me going.  Still, like many others who spend a lot of time in vulnerable positions, I don't always find it easy to put myself out there time and time again.  For someone who is naturally shy and reserved (yes, colleagues, I really am reserved!), the prospect of standing in front of a camera is utterly terrifying.  I managed to not really think about it until the weekend before we started to film.  I spent most of that weekend working on PPTs, watching the Women's College Softball World Series, and burning off my panic on my elliptical.  Seriously.  I was really scared.  I couldn't believe that I had agreed to let myself be filmed while lecturing and then let students watch me talking to them.  I would have no control over how and where students watched me.  I imagined them playing drinking games ("every time she says 'um', take a shot"); mocking me; and worse.

By the time I showed up for the first session of filming, I was terrified.  I am pretty skilled at hiding my panic and I don't know how apparent it was to Mike Heidenreich.  Fortunately, Mike has the most soothing and calm voice and manner of anyone I've met.  He immediately put me at ease and made me feel comfortable in the confines of the audio studio.  Pretty quickly, I realized that I needed to force myself to be completely present in the moment (my athletic background suddenly became very useful).  No thinking about anything except whatever I was speaking about at that very moment.  In fact, I soon came to look forward to my days in the studio.  Before we started and between takes, Mike did a great job of keeping me loose and laughing.  I haven't laughed so much, ever, as I did during the 4 weeks we worked together.  I am pretty sure that, with a less skilled "handler", I'd have done a much worse job.

I still can't watch myself on film for very long.  I watch for about 5 minutes, press pause, do something else, watch for another five minutes.  I still feel vulnerable and exposed.  Now that the class is underway, though, I also get to see all the ways that these pre-recorded lectures have enhanced student learning and made it possible for me to create a classroom that promotes active learning.  The payoff is completely worth the discomfort.

Teaching injury!

The Physical Challenges:  In part because of the intense filming schedule that I chose (because I knew I needed most of July to focus on redesigning the in-class side of things), the process of filming was hard on my body.  Most of us are used to walking around when we are on our feet for long periods.  But filming required standing completely still.  My feet and legs ached tremendously by the end of the day.  I slept with an ice pack on my lower back and took anti-inflammatories like they were Skittles.  I got a massage every week, something I strongly recommend if you are doing a lot of filming.  For the final two weeks, Mike got an anti-fatigue mat for the audio studio--this made a huge difference to my legs.  Within a few days of finishing, most of my aches and pains went away.  My right foot, however, was very sore and a bit swollen.  It turned out that I had fractured a small bone on the bottom of my foot (sesamoid).  It hurt like crazy and took about 6 weeks in a walking boot and a cortisone shot in the bottom of my foot to finally calm down (the bone won't actually heal; the aim is just to reduce pain and swelling).  Lesson I learned: barefoot is a bad idea.  Always wear supportive shoes when standing still!

How I Flipped Out: Pre-Recording Content Delivery

In early June, I focused my attention on reworking the presentation of the content of my Intro to Ancient Rome course.  Once I made the decision to pre-record the lectures using our Echo360 lecture capture technology, I also had to revise and reorganize my Power Point slide presentations.  Even if I had had the time in the spring to start work on revising the Power Points--time that I didn't have--there was no way I could have understood how to do it until I actually did a day of test shots in front of the camera.  It was really only when I was in front of the camera that I was able to intuit the ways that the medium of lecture capture (and shortened lecture times) demanded a different kind of presentation than what I had typically done during a regular class session.  In fact, it becomes clear that, about a week into shooting, I really "got" how to work with the medium of lecture capture and maximize its strengths.

After a weekend of frantically preparing the first 4-5 PPTs, I showed up at the audio studio for the first real day of filming.  We filmed on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 10-1 pm (often more like 2 pm).  We usually filmed 4 lectures/session.  We did two weeks on, a week off, and then two more weeks on.  There were two additional one-day sessions in late July and mid-August to film (and re-film) some lectures orienting students to the course, to blended learning, and to the ethics approach.  We filmed a total of 51 lectures (some of these were re-filmed a few times!) plus the three "introduction to the course and its approach" lectures.  The lectures were about 15-25 minutes in length, and most of them were right around the 20 minute mark.  We ended up re-recording about 15-20% of them, for a range of reasons: the first cut was too long; there was a typographical error on a slide; I was tongue-tied (this happened exclusively at the starts: every once in a while, I would have trouble getting my momentum going); there was a technical problem (one day we lost all of our work because my new computer power cord was creating some kind of interference with the Echo Box); or I just didn't feel like I had done the lecture as well as I could have. 

Now, I'm a perfectionist (like many academics!) and I had to let go of a lot of that during this process.  Still, there were times where I really felt like I could do better and it was worth a second shot.  With the Echo360, we could edit things out but we could not splice things in.  To make this work, one has to stop after making a mistake, wait about 45 seconds, and then start again so that the editors can cut out the mistake.  I could never train myself to do this.  Once I lost my momentum and train of thought, it was gone.  I always found it easier to start over.  Fortunately, most of my troubles came within the first 2-3 minutes so it was easy to just start anew.  In the end, we did keep a few lectures that had tiny errors in them (saying 507 BC instead of 509 BC for the foundation of the republic, but in a context where they have already learned the correct date and it's clearly just a slip), with the thought that we will surely be doing more recording for other versions of the class and so can replace them then.

Reviving the Art of Close Reading

Perhaps the greatest challenge for instructors of large courses (100+ students) is being able to move beyond the delivery of textbook facts and engage in the careful analysis of primary sources.  In my discipline, Classics, the close reading and analysis of literary texts or material artifacts is what we do.  In Latin class, we translate passages, we parse forms of nouns and verbs, we talk about the nuances of specific words.  My own research methods are very dependent on the skills of close reading of literary texts.  I write about big ideas, but my arguments regarding those big ideas are based in the careful analysis of ancient written sources (most of them in Latin).  Yet, in our large introductory courses on Greece and Rome, it is a challenge to get students to engage deeply with ancient primary sources (in translation).  My colleagues who teach our Intro to Ancient Greece course do a splendid job of incorporating primary sources into their classes.  In the Intro to Ancient Rome course, however, we have a more difficulty finding primary sources that are student-friendly.  There is no Latin Plato or Sophocles or Herodotus.  Roman comedy is dense and culturally specific.  Vergil is moderately accessible as is the ancient historian Livy; Sallust has some fun bits.

In the Intro to Ancient Rome, I always assign several selections from Livy to the students during the first section of the course.  Livy is pretty accessible when he talks about Romulus and Remus and the foundation of Rome; and then the regal successors to Romulus.  When he gets to the Tarquins, however, things start to get a bit tricky--in large part because this is when Livy's own historical biases become especially prominent.  His presentation of Tarquin the Proud, Tarquin's son Sextus, Sextus's rape of Lucretia, the expulsion of the Tarquins by Brutus and his followers, and the foundation of the Roman Republic is dense, complicated, full of unfamiliar characters and places and, overall, very difficult for students to understand.  In previous incarnations of the course, I did my best to highlight the major events and characters and one or two themes (e.g. Sextus' violation of guest-host relations), but did not say much about the complexities of the scene.  I had too much basic content to deliver and no time to linger.

In the current flipped class, I don't have to worry about content delivery--it's already done.  This week, the Monday and Wednesday class meetings focused on this episode, with the aim of analyzing the ethics of Brutus's use of Lucretia's rape and suicide to inspire a rebellion against the ruling family, the Tarquins.  In order to begin to evaluate Brutus's actions, it is necessary to engage in a careful reading of Livy's report of the events.  On Monday, we went through several key bits of Livy's account in order to highlight elements of the "case" that might bear on their analyses (e.g. that both Brutus and Sextus engaged in acts of deception, but to different ends).  We did a bit more of that on Wednesday, but then jumped into serious discussion of Brutus's behavior and the arguments that might justify his actions.  We chatted a bit as a class and then I had them "talk to a neighbor".  In order to elicit justifications, they had to be able to know and have some understanding of Livy's account.  That is, they had to engage in the careful reading of a primary source--a kind of reading that went well beyond mere plot summary.

If I needed any confirmation that my current students are learning to read Livy at a depth that I've never seen before in a large, introductory level course, it came shortly after class when a student posted a question on our Piazza.com discussion board.  He was confused about an i>clicker question I asked near the end of class about Brutus's display of Lucretia's body in the forum (i.e. town square) of her hometown of Collatia (15 km Northeast of Rome).  He thought the forum was only in Rome itself.  I quickly answered that most cities had a forum.  He then followed up with a thoughtful and very detailed question about a passage in the Livy text.  He offered his own interpretation and then asked for other opinions.  By the time I saw the follow-up question,  three or four students had already offered various (correct) answers and added useful information.  I was then able to add a couple of links to outside sites.  What struck me was how, in a matter of a few hours, these students hanging out on the Piazza site were able to use this passage to open up a very interesting perspective on the very question we had been considering a few hours earlier in class.  Close reading at its best!

Becoming The Talent

In early June 2012, we began the filming of the lectures that the Rome students are watching outside of class. Initially, I had wanted to record only my voice and the screen capture (as happens when Echo360 is used in class).  I had no problem going to the audio studio to do this since the sound quality would be much better than what I can get recording on my laptop with the cat meowing in the background.  I was not, however, especially eager to be filmed.  I pushed hard not to be filmed, in fact, but the Assistant Dean who runs the Liberal Arts ITS department, Joe TenBarge, was insistent.  In part, filming me would allow them to collect data about student viewing habits.  Students often  say that they would like video on the in-class Echo recordings; now they could see how true that was, at least in one case.  Of course, in my own head, I am thinking, "hmm, maybe you'll just find out that they don't want to watch *me*!"  Now that I have real students watching these videos, I am more persuaded that it was a good decision.  I can see the ways in which having me present and speaking directly to them creates an interesting kind of intimacy.  This is an important antidote against the inevitable depersonalization that occurs in a 400-student classroom.

For reasons that seem silly in retrospect, I had imagined myself teaching in an empty classroom, with a camera somewhere out of sight filming me.  I thought that the weirdest part would be getting used to talking to nobody.  Well, yes, that was weird--but definitely not the most disorienting part of the process.  Before I began filming, I was given an orientation to the audio studio and introduced to the student interns with whom I'd be working, in addition to the UT Echo guru Mike Heidenreich.  We also did some test shots.  One thing that quickly became clear was that I needed to make some important decisions about my appearance: did I want to wear the same thing every day? a new outfit every day?  or something in the middle?  As well, I realized that I would need to real wear make-up because of the bright studio lighting.  For the test shot, I wore a navy blue shirt with some decorative fabric folds on the front--pretty simple as far as women's clothing goes.  On camera, however, it looked distracting, especially because I have dark-rimmed glasses.  The image was too busy.  I also realized that it was not a good idea to wear any sort of dark eye-shadow because, every time I looked down at the computer screen, the viewer got a full view of my eyes.

It didn't take long to arrive at a couple of important decisions: if the video is just a head/upper torso shot, it's probably a good idea to wear something very simple if you want to blend into the background and have the students focusing on what your are saying rather than on you (of course, if you want them looking at you, wearing a new and outrageous outfit every day is the way to do it!).  Wearing foundation and powder (for women, at least) is a good idea.  If you wear eyeshadow, make it a neutral color.  Simplicity was my guiding principle and it seemed to work well.  I ended up wearing a long-sleeved, pinkish t-shirt with a decorative but simple neckline.  My glasses are what stand out the most, but otherwise I coordinate with the Power Point design.  It never occurred to me that a. I would need to think about how I looked on camera; and b. think about what my objectives were in creating an image (have the students think I was a cool dresser?  get them talking about my different "looks"?  fade into the background as much as possible to help them focus on the content rather than the person delivering it?).  It also never occurred to me that I would have to walk around in the hot Texas summer sun with foundation and powder on!  My favorite part of the day was getting home and scrubbing my face.

A screenshot of what the students see when watching the lecture

Another big surprise to me about the filming process was learning how to speak to a camera.  Yes, as it turned out, I wasn't going to be filmed in an empty classroom but rather, the audio "cave"--a soundproof room with a microphone, a camera, a stand holding my laptop, and me.

Bobby the bat enjoyed his time in the audio cave so much that he has become a permanent denizen

I did bring an "audience" with me--some fuzzy friends who inhabit my office--but otherwise it was just me.  And it was weird, disorienting, uncomfortable, scary, etc.  I am accustomed to standing in front of a crowd and lecturing (aka delivering content).  But talking straight to a camera?  I quickly realized that all of my usual teaching habits--making eye contact with as many students as I can; speaking at a reasonably slow pace so that everyone can process what I am saying; and moving around the room--were precisely what I could NOT do when being filmed.  On film, the lecture looks best when one stands completely still (some hand gestures are ok), stares down the camera, and speaks as quickly as possible.  For the first few days, I felt completely out of sorts--here I was doing all the things that would make me a disastrous lecturer in person.  Yet, when I watched the rough cuts, it looked good--and completely normal.  Perhaps most surprising to me was the disconnect between my sense of how fast I was speaking and how normal it looked on film.

Finally, it became immediately obvious that I would need to completely re-work the Power Points I had used to teach the course in the previous fall.  The ideal length of a recorded lecture is about 15 minutes and certainly no more than 25.  In addition, because the students could press pause, I realized that it would be helpful to insert review questions at the midway point and at the end of each lecture.  That way, they could quiz themselves on what they had listened to and rewind if necessary.  They could also use these review questions to guide their preparation for midterm exams.  All of this meant that I completely re-shuffled the arrangement of material.  Each lecture covered less material, but was also more focused on specific topics.  Particularly when it came to lecturing on the complexities of the last century of the Roman Republic (the period covered by HBO's Rome), it was a big advantage to be able to present the material in smaller and more digestible chunks.

Teaching Ethics in a Large Class Setting

In 2004, the Commission of 125--a collection of the top civic, educational, cultural, political, and business leader in Texas charged with studying the University of Texas and offering advice for improvement--released a report of its findings.  Among their recommendations was the exhortation that all University of Texas students "examine questions of ethics and the attributes of effective leadership."  In the wake of Enron and other corporate scandals, among many other ethically questionable happenings across the US, it has become clear that universities have a responsibility to ensure that their graduates leave with an awareness of what are generally considered moral imperatives (e.g. don't cheat, keep your promises, do your duty); an ability to recognize when a moral imperative has been violated; and well-developed skills in ethical analysis.

In response to the recommendation of the Commission of 125, the College of Undergraduate Studies began to offer the possibility of "flagging" certain courses with an Ethics and Leadership Flag.  The Ethics and Leadership flag is one of six flags in a new core curriculum currently being instituted by individual colleges and schools at UT.  To fulfill the core curriculum requirement, students must take (and pass!) at least one course that carries an Ethics and Leadership flag. To flag their course, instructors submit a description of their course objectives, sample readings and activities, and possibly a syllabus to a committee charged with ascertaining that the course meets the requirements of the Ethics and Leadership flag ("at least one-third of the course grade must be based on work in practical ethics, that is, what is involved in making real-life ethical choices"). 

A recent initiative of the College of Undergraduate Studies has focused on redesigning large lecture courses (100+ students) to carry the Ethics and Leadership flag.  In Fall 2011, Jess Miner approached me about adding the flag to my Introduction to Ancient Rome course (Classics was one of the "target departments" for this initiative, and also the field in which Jess holds a PhD).  I was intrigued--the history of ancient Rome is rife with ethically questionable actions, after all!  At the same time, I was unsure how I would be able to add more content to a course that was already overflowing.   I realized that, in order to integrate the ethics component fully and devote enough time to practicing ethical analysis with the students, I would need to shift at least some of the content delivery out of the classroom. 

I was a bit reluctant to change the design of a course that, frankly, was working very well and seemed to be well-received by students.  At the same time, I loved the idea of integrating pragmatic ethics and getting students to see how the lessons of ancient Rome might have applications to their own lives.  After a lot of mulling and consulting with different people, I finally settled on a plan for redesigning the class: I would pre-record the delivery of the Roman history content (essentially, the in-class lectures) and have students watch these outside of class.  In class, we would work though a set of case studies involving ethically questionable actions (e.g. Rape of the Sabines; Brutus' deception and misuse of Lucretia's body to end monarchy and found the Roman Republic).  In other words, I'd "flip" my class.

I did most of my flipping from June-August 2012.  The redesign was funded jointly by Liberal Arts ITS and the Provost's office at UT and I benefited tremendously from the advice of Mike Heidenreich in LAITS and several members of the Center for Teaching and Learning staff (in particular Stephanie Corliss, Mike Wallace, Erin Reilly, and Mario Guerra).  I consulted frequently with Jess Miner to select my case studies, get tutored in the basics of Deni Eliot's Systematic Moral Analysis, and to work through my approach to teaching the case studies.  Among the many lessons I learned this summer: designing and creating a good class is a team effort. 

We started our second case study in class today--Brutus, Lucretia, and the end of the Roman Monarchy.  On Mondays, I use i>clicker questions to review material from the out of class lectures and assigned reading of a short selection from an ancient primary source.  The aim is to bring out key points for our detailed ethical analyses on Wednesdays (on Fridays, one of the TAs leads a review of the out of class material that I don't cover).  A couple of the key issues today: the fact that Brutus himself was a member of the Tarquin clan; and the topic of deception. I continue to be impressed by the students' perceptive comments; their eager participation; their preparation (about 75% of them get the i>clicker questions right); and the natural way that they are using ethics to deepen their understanding of the complexities of Roman history.  It's not just that they are learning about ethics; it's that their learning of Roman history/culture seems to be significantly deeper than that of previous students in this course precisely because the ethics component encourages them to think harder about the subject matter.

On Saturday, in the aftermath of the bomb threat and evacuation, I posted a note on Piazza.com (a site we are using for discussion) suggesting that they could apply what they knew about moral laws and ethics to the UT administration's late evacuation of campus.  Within an hour, a pretty active conversation erupted, with a range of viewpoints.  I was so impressed to see how quickly and easily they were able to highlight the important issues and make arguments pro and con.  It was an impressive demonstration of student learning.

Lecture Capture: The Student Perspective in December 2011

At the end of Fall 2011, Liberal Arts ITS at UT Austin conducted a survey to get feedback from students users about their experiences with the Echo360 lecture capture technology.  98% of my class responded to the survey (they were promised two extra credit points on the fourth midterm if the rate of response was greater than 95%).  The results were pretty interesting to me and I wanted to share them (my favorites were the students who recognized the way it might discourage class attendance; if I ever teach a typical lecture format again, I will put these quotes on the syllabus!).  The first number is for my class; the number in parentheses is the average for all classes using Echo360:

Did you access the lecture capture recordings during the fall 2011 semester?
Yes - 99.1% (84.8%)
No - 0.9% (14.7%)

Overall, I was satisfied with my experience using the lecture capture recordings.
Strongly agree - 51.6% (45.0%)
Agree - 41.2% (44.8%)
Neutral - 4.5% (7.3%)
Disagree - 0.9% (1.4%)
Strongly disagree - 1.8% (1.5%)

When did you primarily view/listen to the recordings? Check all that apply.
Same day as lecture - 17.2% (14.9%)
Same week as lecture - 59.7% (62.2%)
Shortly before exam - 76.9% (68.1%)

What was your main reason for viewing/listening to the recordings?
To review information after the lecture - 7.7% (10.0%)
To add more information to my notes - 6.3% (16.3%)
To prepare for an exam - 48.4% (37.3%)
To get information I missed when absent from class - 29.0% (31.5%)
Instead of seeking assistance from a TA or instructor - 0.5% (0.6%)

Viewing/listening to the lecture capture recordings helped me learn.
Strongly agree - 55.9% (51.8%)
Agree - 36.8% (40.0%)
Neutral - 5.5% (6.2%)
Disagree - 0.0% (0.5%)
Strongly disagree - 1.8% (1.5%)

Viewing/listening to the lecture capture recordings helped me understand the lecture content.
Strongly agree - 52.5% (49.7%)
Agree - 37.1% (40.7%)
Neutral - 7.7% (7.4%)
Disagree - 0.9% (0.9%)
Strongly disagree - 1.8% (1.4%)

If two sections of this course were offered with the same instructor, one with lecture capturing
and one without, which section would you take?
Section with lecture capture - 91.0% (83.5%)
Either - 8.6% (15.4%)
Section without lecture capture - 0.5% (1.2%)

Please provide any thoughts you have about lecture capturing. (here are some of their
responses):

I think this is a great tool for the classrooms! My professor adds a lot of content to
her lecture that isn't found directly on the powerpoint, so hearing her words
allowed me to copy down the extra details that are so important in this course.

The service is convenient for both the instructor and the students, however it may
result in a perverse incentive: not going to class.

I thought it was great. I would listen to them before the tests and all of the
information would be refreshed in my mind and I would do well on the tests.
Amazing tool, helps whether or not you attend lecture. University should not be
hesitant to expand the program just because of concerns about students skipping
lecture.

Extremely useful if you didn't understand something, had to miss a day,
or simply wanted to review. Would love to see this offered in more classes

i loved the lecture capturing, it helped me review information that the professor
had rushed through during class.

It makes me NOT go to class. It's evil!

it is such an amazing tool that helps the most in times of need, both for the
student and the professor. I, as a student sometimes woke up late, or had a test
that same day that required more studying and being able to study an extra hour
and go back and playback the lecture is just like I didn't miss anything! For the
professor, when she isn't feeling her best she just recorded the lecture and
posted it up without having to go to the class, that way we don't miss a class and
fall behind on material either! Love this!