Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 10 | Page 104

HIGHLIGHT #2 | 104 HIGHLIGHT #2 Title Lecture Highlights: Repurposing Lecture Capture to Provide Learning Resources for Level 6 Chemistry Students Authors Laura M. Hancock, Graeme R. Jones, & Daniela Plana DOI http://doi.org/10.21252/ KEELE-0000035 Contact [email protected] The term “lecture capture technology” has been used in the literature to encompass a range of different technologies, ranging from pre-recording lectures in a separate environment to the recording of live lectures and their later distribution to students.[1-4] Currently, the system at Keele, PlayBack, allows the audio and the screen of a live lecture to be recorded a later released to students.[5] Lecture capture is a particularly inclusive tool, as it not only especially supports students who have genuine reasons for missing sessions (illness, caring responsibilities, work), but also students learning in a language that is not their own.[1, 6] The ability to re-live a lecture, to pause it and go at their own speed, is incredibly helpful for learners that are not studying in their native tongue. For many of the same factors, it is also helpful for students with particular learning disabilities.[1] Lecture capture generates an extensive collection of learning resources, which can be used to support learning in various ways. However, although it has become commonplace, there are fewer examples of lecture recordings being edited to create shorter clips.[7] Here we report initial findings into the generation of “Lecture Highlights”, learning resources created from editing lecture capture recordings by student editors, we also comment on the features that we included and how these were received and used by two related cohorts of students. Implementation The choice of topics for production of Lecture Highlights, was mainly based on the fact that in the 2017/2018 academic year, the first cohort of students from a 3+1 joint degree with Nanjing Xiaozhuang University joined the 3rd year chemistry students at Keele for the first time. As the two cohorts have not had the same prior learning experiences, we are dealing with a very diverse cohort in many ways. Providing these resources takes advantage of the benefits of lecture capture for diverse student cohorts, allowing students to access the material multiple times, independent of time and location, at a speed that suits them. Through the support of a Keele Teaching Innovation Project the Lecture Highlights were created. These consisted of short, interactive resources, created from previously recorded lecture content, along with accompanying slides for note-taking. All resources have a clear title, along with a concise one sentence summary of the key concept discussed, and a final slide with a handful of bullet points answering the statement “you should now be able to…”. One additional important feature is that these Lecture Highlights were fully captioned (subtitled in English). They are not necessarily of the polished quality of a standalone screencast, but require HIGHLIGHT #2 | 105 LECTURE HIGHLIGHTS: REPURPOSING LECTURE CAPTURE TO PROVIDE LEARNING RESOURCES FOR LEVEL 6 CHEMISTRY STUDENTS significantly less time and effort to produce. The Lecture Highlights were produced by students who had previously taken the modules from which the lectures were taken. Some direction was provided by staff, such as guidance on the software to be used (Camtasia), the length of videos to be produced (5-10 min), the need for captioning and accompanying edited lecture notes to be provided. The students were mainly allowed complete freedom over the videos, which produced some interesting results, such as the introduction of the final “you should now be able to…” slide. Lecture Highlights were provided to Level 6 Keele Chemistry students in various Semester 1 modules of the 2017–2018 academic year. The topics on which they were produced and made available were selected by asking colleagues what they wanted/thought was relevant for the cohort. They were then provided to the staff member, or put directly on the appropriate module virtual learning environment, and it was left to them to make the resources available to the students or signpost them. Methodology Level 6 chemistry students were asked to complete paper questionnaires anonymously and voluntarily; these were available to the students over a series of timetabled laboratory sessions towards the end of the 2017/2018 academic year. A little over a third of the cohort (26 students, 36%) completed the questionnaires; within that the students on the 3+1 joint-degree programme were somewhat over represented (42% as opposed to 27%), and thus results are considered both on average across the full Keele Chemistry cohort and per individual cohort (labelled throughout as “Joint cohort”, for students on the 3+1 degree, and “Keele cohort”, for students who have studied at Keele throughout their degree). Students were informed that data collected could be used for publication. Ethical approval was obtained through the LPDC Student Project Ethics Committee. Evaluation The first observation from the questionnaires was that approximately a third of those that answered reported having no knowledge of the availability of Lecture Highlights as learning resources; and even those that did were not necessarily aware of the breath of resources available (individual topics were known by a range varying from 36 to 62% of the students).