Confusing a lecture with instruction
The Attack of the Pod People addresses student enthusiasm for downloadable lectures in lieu of, it would appear from the context, attending class. I neither fully agree or disagree with the author, but he is getting a fundamental point in terms of the student in question’s reaction to being able to podcast class materials–just because students like it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good for them. That being said, in the context of this opinion piece, there is a fundamental blurring of distinction between lecturing and instruction that would be nice for a lot of faculty to pay attention to. In fact, I would say if your argument for not providing podcasts is that students would have no need to go to your class anymore (a concern I have heard more than once), then you are doing something wrong. Why? Because if all your students do when they come to class is sit and listen to you, then WHY NOT just let them download your comments and listen to them through osmosis while they sleep off last night’s hang over.
Schneider asks: “At 8 in the morning I may not be beautiful — hell, I may not even be fully awake — but I’m there, and I’m dressed. Any questions?”
Yes, I have a question. What else –besides being there and wearing clothes– are you requiring of your students during this class time that makes the class relevant for them, which allows them to build on their knowledge of the content and receive feedback, and which allows them to interact with their peers in developing their expertise? I’m not picking on Scheider. I’m just suggesting that going even deeper into what is offensive about the lecture-podcast besides a sense that because he, as the professor has to be there to show s/he cares, students should too. That’s not enough of an argument because it leaves the opposite argument open–if a professor feels that creating podcasts is how they show commitment to their students, isn’t that caring enough? Production, after all, can be very time consuming. In fact, it’s the treatment of content as something that only need be transmitted to the student for learning to occur that is offensive.
In this debate, I’m struck by the contrast between research on learning which lauds the importance of social interaction in learning and the importance of understanding how to communicate with others in a target community of practice versus the advancement of the technological machine, which many seem to interpret as permission to distance themselves (students and faculty alike) from (other) learners. It is a curious contradiction.
