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Table of Contents of Teaching/Learning
Activities and Spaces
Communication in traditional classrooms is
short-lived. The blackboard's content may be erased moments
after it's written, to make room for the next words and
pictures, and all that remains for the student is the student's
attempt to copy it accurately while simultaneously thinking
about it and also listening to what the faculty member is
saying. And "what the faculty member is saying," is even
more transient: vanished in a split second. Some faculty
prefer that situation; they believe it creates an incentive for
students to come to class and thereby benefit, and help
classmates benefit, in ways that would be impossible if some, or
all students, stayed away and reviewed recordings. Other
instructors want students to be able to review, and therefore
use other incentives to encourage student participation.
Virtual: Most communications systems
can record what participants write or say.
Physical: classrooms can use a
wide variety of technologies for recording communication,
including:
- Computer whiteboard that records what is
written on it (this can be helpful both for students and also
for faculty who are improvising as they teach and need a
record later of the discussion
- Sound recordings (see
enabling participants to hear) and video recordings of the
presentation. If this material is digitized, it's easier to
post on the institution's intranet or on the web. One of
the problems for both video and sound can be getting adequate
recordings of what the students are doing, especially in
courses that emphasize discussion and, even more, in courses
where students spend time in simultaneous small group
discussions. If both recordings and small group discussion are
important, on strategy is to put the small group discussions
on line, synchronously or asynchronously. If you have found it
useful to record simultaneous small group face-to-face
discussions, please let me know
(ehrmann@tltgroup.org
)
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(Other strategies you can add?
Send us examples.)
-Steve Ehrmann, The TLT Group; updated Nov. 1,
2004
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