I have never taught a course using synchronous teaching techniques, but I have been a student and I have TA'd for courses that incorporated these things. From the student perspective, synchronous teaching was very useful. Not only could I see the professor as they were explaining, but I could also see the slides and markings that they made on each slide. Because these types of lectures were recorded, I was able to pause, go back and re-listen to a portion of the information that I didn't understand the first time. I really like incorporating this type of thing into the learning environment. Yet, from the TA/professor prospective, synchronous teaching made interactions with the students more difficult. You didn't get the face-to-face interaction like in the traditional classroom and because of this students had to reach out more to meet with us. Often, because more effort was required on the students' part, many just avoided having to contact the professor or TAs altogether. If students were to merely participate more, I believe that synchronous teaching could easily be incorporated and should be used within the learning environment.
Then, the debates that the second group made us participate in were a really nice way to get student participation and for their understanding to be known. I have to admit that when I first heard that we had to do a debate, I was a little less than thrilled. Yet, while going through the activity I realized what a good method it was to get students involved. Also, it really did make me think differently about incorporating different technologies into the classroom setting. I have never been really interested in learning new technologies, let alone incorporating them into my teaching, merely because I am not technologically savvy.... But by making your students learn and utilize the different forms of technology as they emerge, you would ultimately be helping them learn the techniques and technologies that they'll have to know for future work. In society today, technology has become the basis of many different fields, so why not keep your students up to date? If you make them learn a new technology, you are helping them learn how to learn and incorporate new ideas. Ultimately, you could be helping your students grow and be ready for the world of grown up jobs where they'll be expected to figure out this type of thing on a daily basis.
Glad you found the debates useful!
ReplyDeleteYour comments about decreased student interaction with synchronous teaching and students dropping out of participation got me thinking about ways that I could facilitate this interaction so I don't lose the students and don't require them to take the initiative. I wonder if one possibility is to have the students post a video version of the minute paper if they don't get face time with the professor. So maybe limit them to a 30 second video response and if you have a large class, you only check a portion of your students' responses each time to get a feel for how students took in the information. You could even have some standard accompanying information, so if the recording were posted on YouTube on a private channel, they could fill out some required, pre-formatted information in the "about" section below the video. This seems more authentic than getting some worksheet response from them.
Long comment, but you raise a really interesting point that will keep me thinking for a while I'm sure.