Vignettes from the Field
Snapshot
Phil |
Lecturer |
Discipline |
Life Sciences |
Delivery mode |
Internal students |
Level |
Undergraduate |
Experience with WBLT |
Positive |
‘I like having the lectures on (WBLT) because I feel I’m providing a better service for the students .’ Phil
Phil’s story
Phil teaches on-campus, undergraduate classes in the discipline of Life Sciences. He has been teaching at University for over 11 years and has explored new technologies since he began teaching.
WBLT and teaching
Phil’s impressions of using WBLT have been positive and he sees them as tools for making learning easier and more efficient for students. Although he recognises that face-to-face lectures give him a chance to motivate his students and interact with them, he sees the need for flexibility in how the courses are delivered. He cites examples of students who have other commitments and would miss lectures altogether if WBLT was not available:
(If I) look at the numbers of people enrolled and the number of people in the lecture theatre, attendance isn't 100%. A significant number wouldn't turn up for lectures. The people I definitely know I’ll never have are, for example, people who are in the elite athlete sporting programs. They're not always even in the state, so they find it fantastic that they can pick up (WBLT) whenever they want. So there are some people whose other interests prevent them from coming to a lecture.
Phil considers it important that students come to university to ‘meet people with different opinions and from different backgrounds’ however he doesn’t take any measure to encourage attendance:
Why should they come and sit in the lecture theatre where they're not interacting with anyone? I'd rather they came in for coffee and chatted with their buddies and then just sped off again.
Even attendance at lectures does not ensure student engagement, according to Phil, as he sees that writing extensive notes during the lecture does not necessarily mean that the contents will be recalled.
He sees opportunities for WBLT to benefit staff, for example, as part of the ‘induction’ for new teaching staff members. He has also used it in emergency cases, such as when the lecture theatre was unexpectedly and suddenly unavailable. Rather than spending time rescheduling the lecture, last year’s archive was offered using WBLT.
Impressions of using WBLT
Phil has had positive experiences using WBLT and he considers it to be a tool to assist his students in their learning. He has experienced no notable drop in attendance, but he sees that there should be no need to make students attend:
(WBLT) would take the edge off the inspirational part of the lecture. In a normal lecture I'm expecting to build some sort of identity with (the students) I guess with the larger classes it's a little bit more them to me than me to them- but you certainly see familiar faces.
Although he does admit that students need flexibility, he sees that they would miss out on the ‘wider social and cultural university experience if they don’t come to campus at all. He acknowledges that students miss out on the live performance if they don’t attend.
Phil raises a point about the difficulty of using traditional methods to obtain student feedback on his teaching, as required for ‘promotion’ and for ‘developing one's teaching positively’:
If you have students who are never coming along to lectures you have to somehow get your survey from to them online.
Learning Futures
‘I'll think there'll be a hugely increased flexibility in delivery- along the same lines I imagine that we have now but more of it. I suspect also that they'll be a far greater chance to make degrees that comprise of units from different institutions. One unit (could be) offered by one university and the other by another university and somehow either get a double-badged degree at the end of it or some other institution would then award the overarching sort of degree that you picked up from all sorts of different places- either by physically being there or by subscribing or purchasing the material online. Very much a virtual learning place and maybe no attendance at all.
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