Extend the lecture with video resources Creating space in face to face teaching

Statistics 1

Dr Jacco Thijssen

Department of Economics and Related Studies

1st year UG / approx 270 students

Keywords, video, lecture_capture, teaching_methods

Aims and Objectives

Statistics 1 is a core module in the Department of Economics with a large student cohort who come to the module from A level with a range of skills and experience in this subject. It is important that all students are supported to meet the learning outcomes which will underpin many subsequent areas of the curriculum. Large group teaching in lectures can be effective at providing an overview of the fundamental concepts and mathematical techniques required for this subject, but is not always sufficient to provide detailed explanations.

While this can be sufficient for the more adept or experienced students, additional support is often required by weaker students or those who are new to this area. It is also recognised that large group teaching approaches are not always appropriate for students to learn detailed mathematical processes. This initiative aimed to:

Overview

The initiative provided video “walkthrough” explanations and detailed demonstrations of core material which underpins learning through the module. Two types of video content were produced;

  1. Pre-recorded videos addressing the core weekly mathematical formulae and concepts. Students can access this material prior to lectures which will address briefly but also contextualise the material covered in the videos. Students are also able to access recordings after lectures to recap and get more detailed explanations than can be provided in class time.
  2. Videos produced in response to student requests and questions raised in lectures which cannot be addressed in detail in face to face time. These videos are often produced quickly after lecture sessions and made available to students as soon as possible while the lecture content and issues raised are still fresh.

In both instances students are encouraged to control how they access the videos, pausing, seeking to key parts and actively mirroring the teacher activity in the videos by working through the problems themselves.

Methodology

Different production approaches were taken to producing the two types of video. Both approaches used were intended to be able to produce video content quickly with the minimum of technical barriers to save staff time and resource and enable the rapid production of video content in response to student requirements.

  1. Pre-recorded videos using the “Personal Capture” tool, provided by the University's Replay lecture capture service. This allowed “at desk recordings” to be made using two webcams; one showing a pen and paper as the equation is developed, the other showing a talking-head of the lecturer. Recordings are published directly to the VLE and accessed by students through a common area along with other videos in this series. Videos can be viewed online, a rudimentary table of contents allows students to skip to key parts and student access and use can be tracked to inform the teacher which videos are viewed and which parts within them were accessed most frequently.
  2. Responsive videos using simple webcam recordings using software bundled with the webcam. The webcam records pen and paper only. Videos are saved and uploaded directly to the VLE and made available to students as links that allow them to download the videos and view locally.

Reflections

Transferable lessons learned

Next Steps