Universities are currently introducing ‘lecture capture’ –
lectures will be recorded and made available to those unable to attend or who
may want to review the class.
It has been met with a high degree of criticism from staff.
Many fear that attendance will fall – students will stay at home and watch the
video. Most of us know that a good lecture ideally involves ‘being there’ – the
chance to engage with the lecturer and with other students during and perhaps
after the class. It is about being an active part of an academic community,
rather than an adjunct to it.
Many classes are flexible, involving lecturing alongside
questions and discussion. Granted, this is very difficult given the large lecture
sizes that many deal with. Nonetheless, the flexibility to teach as one sees
fit is very important. It would be a backwards step if lecturers felt
constrained in any way by the technology.
Yet the right for students to not be recorded is a part of
the policies that are being introduced. Muting individuals within a class at
their request is awkward. Will some students simply stay quiet?
Will a lecturer feel as free to broach a controversial
topic? Will they be prepared to go out on a limb and present a new argument considered
left (or right) field? Will they be prepared to deviate from the schedule when
they might otherwise feel it is justified by current events to do so? Will they
feel brave enough to simply to turn off the lecture slides and run some key
issues raised by the class?
Having spoken to many staff about this – partly in my role
as a union representative and partly out of professional interest – the
majority of staff admit that they will change the way they teach.
Whilst the problems are real, they do not lie with lecture
capture. The real issue, and culprit, is university culture itself. The
consumer model of education now prevalent promotes two things that are likely
in practice to encourage lecturers to adapt when using the technology.
First, lectures have increasingly become part of a formal
‘delivery’ of an academic ‘service’ tied in to a pseudo contractual
relationship between fee paying ‘consumers’ and their ‘providers’. The language
of ‘learning outcomes’ that are in some cases compulsory and ‘mapped’ to
specific classes and assessments doesn’t help. Students are socialised into
seeing higher education as an overly formal ‘delivered’ product with clear
specifications.
Second, and also a part of the consumer model, universities
are no longer spaces where free thought and free speech are guaranteed. The
wider political climate in which disagreeable ideas and words are sometimes
associated with offence and psychological damage is manifest in numerous speech
codes, codes of conduct and zero tolerance policies. The existence of such
policies – whilst they are seldom invoked – may make lecturers think twice
before repeating a personal anecdote that illustrates a point, stating a strong
view they hold or cracking a slightly risqué joke. Issues related to trans
rights, religion and #metoo are amongst those where strong opinions or certain
words can be taken as a breach of university policy, even when no law has been
broken and when there is no intent to cause offense. Hence a growth of self censorship
and a certain conservatism in the classroom are likely outcomes when lectures
are captured.
There is much to be said for treating the lecture and
seminar space as a sacred space for the lecturer and his or her students, one
where a lecturer can cultivate an intellectual relationship with students,
defined by mutual trust and openness. Ideally, staff should feel confident to
play devil’s advocate, to change tac and to use humour as they see fit. The
lecture room should be their space,
where they can exercise their autonomy in imparting knowledge and in which they
can hone their craft.
Hence that universities don’t provide guarantees that
captured lectures can’t be invoked in student complaints or disciplinary
proceedings is a problem. The argument that they will more likely provide
evidence in favour of a lecturer subject to an accusation does not reassure.
The issue is the importance of trust in the lecture room, a trust that is
already undermined by the twin assumptions that education is the ‘delivery’ of
‘learning outcomes’ and that staff and student codes of conduct are in fact
needed to mediate the lecture room and the university as a whole.
So the issue is not lecture capture, but the conservatism
that is encouraged through our consumerist and therapeutic model of education.
In order to get the most from lecture capture, we need to refound the lecture itself
as an arena for the cultivation of knowledge rather than simply its delivery,
and as a sacred space where trust rules over fear.
Jim Butcher
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