In recent years, I've been delving (both in law and other disciplines) into strategies and platforms for effective online teaching/learning. I was never a strong proponent of online law teaching in particular because, like many others, I've always felt there's something about classroom interactions that's hard to replace online. And, yes, I know there are all sorts of ABA Standards and other rules that preclude significant amounts of online J.D. instruction, so my experience in the recent past has been with online LL.M. and other similar programs.
While I was always leery of online law teaching, I have taken a lot of online courses, and started to teach several, in other disciplines. The technologies have advanced significantly since I first raised my concerns in the mid to late 1990s when law profs in Australia began to worry we'd soon all be replaced by talking heads on computers.
I still haven't come to any definitive conclusions about when, and in what circumstances, online teaching can be as good as, better than, or a useful supplement to classroom instruction, but I've recently started thinking about one particular aspect of online teaching: lecture recordings, and how best to make use of them.
I've taken, and also instructed, online classes that have no "lecture" component. There may be preset readings or short YouTube videos, or blog posts gathered together as part of the course materials, but no actual formal lectures as such. I've also taken, and instructed, classes where the instruction has utilized either interactive video classes with students (via Skype, Zoom etc) or pre-recorded lectures, or a combination of both.
Pre-recorded lectures can be particularly useful in some circumstances: for example, where the course needs to be asynchronous because students are in different places/time zones etc.
I've been teaching a few courses recently that require pre-recorded lectures for this purpose. Because these courses are law-related and because I want discussions to be as interactive as possible (even though they're largely asynchronous and use text-based discussion boards), I record new lectures weekly, both presenting new material and reacting to/commenting on discussions from previous weeks. I do this, rather than pre-recording everything upfront, because I want to simulate, as best I can within the constraints of the technology, the feeling of an interactive classroom.
However, some people have suggested to me that this is a waste of time and it's easier to pre-record everything because this can give you the benefit of re-using lectures in later iterations of a course in subsequent semesters, and it also gives you the benefit of having everything prepared upfront and not having to fit in lecture-recording at what may become a busy time of the semester.
I'm wondering if others have faced this issue in teaching or learning in an online setting and how you feel about it. I think pre-recorded lectures that are recyclable can be very useful in many contexts including things like Bar Prep courses where there is a lot of material that doesn't change much from year to year, a lot of students in a lot of different places, and perhaps less need to create an environment that simulates a classroom setting. However, does it always make sense to save time and recycle lectures if you can? (I'm aware too that a lot of folks teaching online courses are adjuncts and visitors and have less time to spend on course prep because of, say, other practice obligations, than full time faculty members and that might make a difference too.)
So, yes, this is a finicky point and not many people are probably thinking about it, but if anyone is, I'd be interested in your thoughts.
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