{"id":4841,"date":"2024-05-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspire\/?p=4841"},"modified":"2024-05-13T13:11:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T20:11:35","slug":"what-is-a-lecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/inspire\/2024\/05\/13\/what-is-a-lecture\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Lecture?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Seems like an easy question to answer, right? I might not give it a second thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, as an online course developer, I sometimes find myself in conversations with co-developers where I realize I\u2019ve been working under a different assumption about what a lecture is. And that\u2019s fine, I kind of like having my preconceptions challenged. I wanted to share a little of that experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our media development team has one of the stricter definitions of lecture, a specific kind of video recording. They have to, they are handling hundreds of videos every term. It\u2019s essential for them to be able to sort media into the most efficient pipeline. Makes sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when I am working with subject matter experts, instructors, co-developers, etc. \u2026 I have found it useful to stay more flexible regarding many definitions. Sometimes errors in assumptions can open a door for discourse. It has certainly been a creative challenge. As an example, I\u2019ll reminisce a little about a couple of my favorite mistaken assumptions about lectures. Ah yes, I remember it like it happened just this last Fall \u2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I helped develop an upper-division online course centered on technology for educators. My first mistaken assumption was going in all ready to talk about video lecturing. The instructor on this co-development was a podcaster and wanted to deliver lectures in that format. I\u2019ve had other instructors who preferred podcast lectures, no worries there. Some instructors see podcasts as a more portable kind of lecture or an alternative way to access the content. Students can listen to lectures on the go or download the lecture for offline listening. We just had to make sure to include transcripts for accessibility instead of captioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, I got to design the following playback interfaces to make them look more \u2018podcasty\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As you\u2019ve probably guessed, there was a second mistaken assumption on my part. I was thinking the podcasts were the lectures. The podcasts are pieces of a larger \u201cdiscourse given before an audience or class especially for instruction\u201d. (Miriam-Webster: lecture<\/a> and discourse<\/a>). For our course, this discourse might be composed of multiple media element types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The instructor wanted each \u2018lecture\u2019 to be a curated collection of learning elements focusing on specific topics; podcasts, video, reading, even Padlet posts. Part of the pedagogy here is to immerse them, as students, in a variety of technologies in the lectures that they may be using as educators. Together, we collaborated to find the most effective way to present all of this material as discrete lectures. Below is what we came up with. Would you still consider these lectures?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Interestingly, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve quite strayed far from the Merriam-Webster definitions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n