Recorded Lectures – Their Use and Impact
Petr Habala & Marie Demlová
Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, CTU in Prague
One of the lasting impacts of the covid-era lockdowns is wide availability of recorded lectures that were left over after the covid restrictions ended. Student response, both at our institution and reported from elsewhere, was overwhelmingly in favour of preserving these recordings and making them available. Consequently, in the post-covid era we are encountering in increasing numbers courses that returned to the traditional form with live lectures, but recorded lectures are offered as a supplementary aid in case students miss lecture for some reason. How does this impact teaching and learning?
There has been a considerable research on impact of recorded lectures, but this was typically done (especially in the pre-covid era) in situations when the recorded lectures are an integral part of a course structure, replacing live lectures. Thus it is not clear how much the findings apply to situations where the recordings are just a low-key extra, but we can speculate that the influence will be similar. To confront our expectations with reality we turn to two sources of information, student surveys and analytics of video lectures.
We asked students in two courses to express their opinion and experiences with recorded lectures using closed-form questions. Both surveys were taken in the spring of 2022, one was taken by first year students of our MSc program with 57 responses, while the other survey was taken by freshmen with 75 responses.
The results confirm our expectations. Majority of students watched at least some recorded lectures, and for many of them it was an inducement to skip some live lectures. Majority of them also revisited some recordings when studying for exams. Most students considered availability of recorded lectures as very beneficial, with a strong endorsement in comments.
Unfortunately, we were not able to assess the impact of this use of recordings on learning outcomes. Since the surveys were anonymous, we were not able to match reported studying styles with grades, and statistical comparison of general results with pre-covid years is not feasible due to other influencing factors.
In the second part we look at analytics of the videos that we offered in these two courses. We compare viewing habits and offer some interpretations. We also compare the observed trends with some other recorded lectures and similar educational videos.
The effect of using Padlet on math collaborative learning in an engineering course
Caridade, C.M.R 1,2,3 & Rasteiro, D.M. 1,2
1 Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, ISEC, Coimbra, Portugal, 2 Applied Biomechanics Laboratory – ISEC, Coimbra, Portugal, 3 Centre for Research in Geo-Space Science (CICGE), Porto, Portugal
Collaborative learning (CL) is a process of continuous interaction and joint and mutual construction among members of a given group with the aim of acquiring knowledge and skills (Figueiredo et al., 2014). The Padlet application (Padlet, 2023) is a digital tool that allows the construction of knowledge, through the creation of a dynamic wall, in an interactive digital environment for debate and sharing of ideas. The use of collaborative methodologies in higher education has been incipient. It is pertinent that a greater reflection on didactic knowledge also be initiated in higher education institutions (Freeman et al., 2014). Thus, this paper intends to present the reflections of two higher education mathematics teachers and their students on participation in CL.
This paper describes a study, with the objective of evaluating the possibilities of knowledge construction through CL in the innovative Padlet environment. During the practical classes of the math curricular unit in one engineering course, activities and assessments were carried out using the Padlet. Program themes are organized by columns on the wall. Each group of students accesses a problem proposal on a given topic using QR-Code. In the first part of the class, the group must solve the problem correctly, using all the materials and technologies they deem necessary. In the second part, each group will correct another group’s problem. The teacher circulates around the room providing the necessary support with the role of advisor in carrying out the proposed problems. Through the direct observation of the teacher during the classes, the experiences of the authors and the evaluation of the students in these contents, it will be possible to collect information that will allow to demonstrate that the collaborative learning with the use of the Padlet was efficient. The students’ opinion in the interviews and in the 2 applied questionnaires (initial and final) will also be very important data to be collected regarding their interest in using the Padlet and in the activities in a collaborative way.
In conclusion, this paper will describe, analyse, and discuss the interest in using a CL environment for the development of knowledge and for student motivation in teaching/learning math for engineers. The perspectives of students and teachers will be observed regarding their motivation and interest, allowing to expand the range of perspectives on the contents covered and enriching the necessary discussions for the future development of activities.
Lectures with worksheets
Samuel Bengmark
Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg
In this study, we argue for the need to look for improvements to the way mathematics lectures are given (Freeman et al., 2014; Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark, 2006; Lee & Anderson, 2013). To contribute to that end, we report on a teaching intervention in which a traditional mathematics lecture format was modified to include worksheets with tasks that students were asked to work on with peers periodically during the lecture. The data consists of students´ perceptions about the intervention, collected as free-text answers to questionnaires, and was collected in two calculus courses, one in the USA (n=228) and one in Europe (n=65). The data is coded and categorised (Glaser & Strauss, 2017), and some basic descriptive statistics are compiled. As a framework for the analysis, we use three didactical challenges for lectures: (1) activating prior knowledge for all students (Christen & Murphy, 1991), (2) retaining student focus (Joshi, Woodward, and Woltering, 2022; Risko et al., 2012), and (3) lack of opportunities for students to get back on track during mathematics lectures (Harris & Pampaka, 2016). We find that the respondents’ opinions about lectures with worksheets are mixed: mostly positive but partly negative, pointing to aspects needing improvement. There are indications that the respondents perceive that using worksheets can diminish problems related to the didactical challenges above. Practical implications of these results are discussed, including challenges with the time used for worksheets and with constructing appropriate worksheet tasks.