Watching live probably helps the lecturer be more engaging, but watching recordings is just infinitely better for learning, imo. You can watch at a higher speed, pause, and rewind as needed. Of course you canāt ask questions in real time, but you can use office hours for that. I suppose in some classes this latter downside is significant enough that going in person is the way to go, but I donāt thing thatās true for most courses.
Yes this was exactly my experience. I actually did fairly well that semester because I could listen clearly. I did like to go to my classes in general during my degree because I always worried Iād be too disorganised if I just resigned myself to listening - I would just leave everything until a Sunday or until the week before exams/assignments!
Itās really complicated. There are obvious upsides to recording - students can rewatch material that was initially unclear, and they donāt suffer from having to miss a class. But I think there are downsides as well - a big part of what I (hope to) do is to present the material from slightly different angles to help students understand it. For any given topic I teach, I can give the intuition in a few different ways. If youāre in class, you get the chance to say, āHey, I donāt really understand what you just saidā, and I can re-frame it in a way that makes it more intuitive for the particular student. But if youāre watching it via recording, you donāt have that opportunity.
I also think an unmeasurable part is one of motivation - I suspect there are students who donāt attend class because they know they can watch the recordings, but then also donāt end up watching the recordings or they end up halfway paying attention while also playing Elden Ring or whatever.
Probably the biggest challenge that I face as a teacher is providing a good learning experience for the full distribution of students. If I only had to deal with the middle 80%, or even the top 90%, this job would be a lot easier.
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This is kind of a bullshit attitude imo - Iām going to intentionally not come to class because I know I can watch it online, but also Iām going to need you to answer all of my questions one-on-one because I couldnāt be bothered to attend in class? No
The Venn Diagram of students who donāt come to class, but ask questions at office hours are mutually exclusive circles.
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I donāt disagree, but if that option is available (which it often is), then why not use it?
Are you saying that you would decline to answer a question someone had after watching a vid of your lecture? If so, that would definitely put spidercrab lectures into this category:
I did that from time to time
If I knew for a fact that a particular student was not attending class, but was then asking to meet with me so that I could re-explain things that we talked about in class, I would be internally pissed off and probably give them less time than I would to other students who came to class.
But in reality, this isnāt an issue because:
- I only get individual requests from about 5-10% of my total students at all.
- A large portion of those requests come from students who I know are attending class regularly.
Itās very strange. I end up teaching between 50-150 students in a given semester, and my irritation/satisfaction/happiness in any given semester is almost entirely determined by the bottom 5% of students. So I genuinely donāt care about stuff like this in most cases. If a student wants to meet with me and theyāre polite and donāt act like an asshole, thatās totally fine. If itās a student that I know comes to class, I actively want to help them learn and I donāt begrudge any of the time I offer them. But there are students who just suck the life out of me, in terms of:
- not understanding even the most basic material (I teach an intermediate class to primarily majors)
- asking me to just literally read things from a slide, or
- who have an inability to communicate with any level of courtesy
If I have a semester without that type of student, itās glorious. This year, I have 2 or 3, and itās the opposite of glorious.
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My approach.
Watch 80 to 90% of the classes live. Except when I have something better to do.
Watch all the other lectures after (but itās much harder and saps my will to live)
Rewatch parts of the lecture on the hard stuff prior to exam.
Not having recordings would make the experience considerably worse.
One class during Covid ONLY recorded the lectures. I spent the entire semester with no contact, other than 2 minutes right at the end where i pointed out a mistake in the exam question using an online chat tool.
That semester kind of sucked.
For the longest time I thought George Thorogood was black
Whatās all this talk about ārecordingsā? Back in my day, if we skipped class, we borrowed someoneās notes AND WE LIKED IT!
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There was a service in the town where I went to school that would pay a student to take really good notes, and then format and sell thoseā¦ maybe this was common, I donāt think I ever used it. Also skipped a lot of classes.
Thanks Pete!
High school baseball umpires association ārequest for a pay raise of $10 dollars per game, plus an additional $15 dollars for travelā. Canāt believe they get paid so much for the pleasure of getting yelled at by some overweight, camouflage fashionistas.
Finally for the first time got a jury summons. For federal court too.
Has to be parody
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Iāve definitely had people say I/my partners are the best bosses theyāve ever had, and that they love working here. Maybe not having a bunch of fantasies involving employees returning their salaries / taking voluntary pay cuts has something to do with that.
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