Comments on: iTunes can Replace Professors

By: Ms. Adverthinker » A Boon for Technology, a Curse for Class Attendance

Ms. Adverthinker » A Boon for Technology, a Curse for Class Attendance — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:44:22 +0000

[...] Based on the research article “iTunes University and the Classroom: Can Podcasts Replace Professors?” [...]

By: Neil

Neil — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:59:32 +0000

I recently started following this blog and enjoy it.
The study was interesting and appreciate the author’s clarification above.

I would love to know a couple more things:
1. What was the level of interactivity in the live class? Did students or the professor ask questions? Was there any discussion? Was this captured in the podcast?
2. How big was the class size?
3. Did the professor use an audience response system to gauge student needs, assess comprehension of the material or customize the lecture?
4. Why choose 25 min as the lecture length?
5. What was the complexity of the content compared to the average student’s understanding of it?
6. Why choose a week as a recall period?

Clearly in the situation described – the students who listened to the podcasts more than once and encoded (transformed) the information by taking notes did better. If the class was a highly interactive one with a lot of “active learning” I think this would be a very provocative study. If it was not, then maybe we need a study that compares one such “ideal” class with a podcast?

Education in general is moving away for passive lectures to large groups – because most educators would believe that active learning in small groups which allow for some transformation of the knowledge into non-textual formats works best.

What one would love to see tested is a pedagogic model that incorporates podcasts into interactive small group learning. There have been studies where asking learners to create podcasts and share them with each other have worked http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120083673/abstract

Also would love to see if this makes a dent in outcomes other than knowledge scores…….

By: Dr Shock

Dr Shock — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:33:54 +0000

Taking notes while listening to the podcast benefits learning but the same goes for taking notes during class. Students differ In how they work, is it in class or is it while listening to the podcast. This is probably due to interest, motivation and probably more factors. Do these two methods differ in these factors, in other words does listening to a podcast make the students use more note taking, is that a specific additive effect of podcasts? I don’t think so but than I might be wrong. Put it in another way, did the students with note taking do better in the exam than those not taking notes and how is that in the podcast group?
Thanks for your comment and I enjoyed your research very much. When giving lectures I always ask my self does this help them? The main advantage of giving lectures is that you get to know some of the 300 students and they get to know you.
Kind regards Dr Shock

P.S Another blog science daily I think it was also discovered your research

By: Dani McKinney

Dani McKinney — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:08:00 +0000

The cautiousness of our conclusions was actually not due to any critique of colleagues on our campus. The cautiousness is completely supported by the findings themselves. The data show that only when the podcast gets the same attention as a normal in class-lecture session is there any benefit from having it. The literature in the field on podcast usage was lacking a key element that needed to be explored before students assumed having a podcast was enough–the literature we reviewed found very limited use of any kind of testing or exam over the material covered in the podcast. In addition, almost all of the literature we reviewed included podcasts as something that was IN ADDITION to attending the classroom session.

Our question was how podcasts might be used to help a student find out information about a lecture they may have missed. It is actually fairly common for students to miss at least one lecture during a semester. We know that students who get notes of a class session from a friend do more poorly than those students who attended the actual lecture. How might these students fair if given an audio copy of the lecture accompanied by the powerpoint slides?

The findings indicate that passively listening to the lecture does not help much. The advantage only comes when the student took notes while listening….and the biggest difference was when the students listened more than once as well as taking notes—basically, when the students worked HARDER than even those who came to class and took notes. So, far from being able to replace the lecture session, the students who showed the advantage were the ones who took the opportunity to encode the material more than one time, and both visually and auditorially.

I appreciate the thoroughness of your review of our article—the last week since it has came out, I have been wondering if anyone would take the time to carefully review the ENTIRE paper, and all of our findings. Thank you for doing just that.