"I loved having pre-recorded lectures. It provided the face to face instruction I enjoy."

"The video lectures and short in-person meetings struck a good balance of synchronous and asynchronous communication: face-to-face time to ask questions and lectures that I could watch at any time. This was just handled amazingly well."

Recorded vs. Live Lectures

This spring, we asked you to avoid synchronous class sessions out of concern for internet bandwidth. When we went remote, our students went home to many situations which, for some, prevented them from joining during regularly scheduled class times. Some of these concerns remain for fall, but students appreciated an occasional or once a week option for live lectures during remote learning. If we were to return to remote learning, a balance between pre-recorded and live opportunities gives students the best of both worlds as represented by the quotes above.

Pre-recorded lectures or recorded live lectures are beneficial to students, even in a fully face-to-face environment. Students expressed that they liked being able to take more thorough notes, pause and rewatch, and occasionally speed up lectures. Some faculty already record lectures and publish them after class. This approach helps the faculty easily have content available for remote learners and for students who are sick or traveling.

Regardless of the modality of your lectures (in-person, virtual live, or pre-recorded), invite students to interact with one another and with you on the content of your lectures.

Interactive Lectures: Dale Hamilton

Dale Hamilton, Computer Science, describes how he utilized both pre-recorded and live lectures and how he interacted with students in both. As you watch the video, use the comment area of the timeline to do one or more of the following:

Ask a question
Answer someone else's question
Identify something from the video you can use in your classes

Additional Clips

Dale discussing the benefits of students using the chat feature in a live virtual lecture

Dale discussing how he alternated between live and pre-recorded lectures

Dale discussing the benefits for students to pause and rewind lectures