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Online material decreases class attendance?

Created by Henry E. Schaffer (North Carolina State University) on January 29, 2006
If you build a web site, will they still come? Come to the lectures, that is.

I'm referring to a "complete" web site. One with all the lecture slides, videos (or at least audio recordings) of the lecture, all the lecture handouts, etc.

The conventional wisdom says that there is no effect on attendance. Cf. the Educause presentation on Duke's iPod experience, "faculty did NOT find that lecture attendance decreased significantly with recorded lectures"

A recent article in the LA Times gives a different view - and a more controversial one. This article, Why go to class? Just go onlineEven friends' notes no longer needed by Stuart Silverstein, Los Angeles Times appeared in the Jan. 25, 2006 Raleigh NC, News&Observer.

It starts with an example of a UC-B class with an enrollment of 200+, which, after having a terrific web site established, ended up with "But there was one problem: So many students relied on the technology that, at times, only 20 or so actually showed up for class."

Is this good, bad or irrelevant? How does it/will it affect learning outcomes?

I have some thoughts on these issues, and I tend to come back again and again to active learning and student engagement. I'll say more about this later - for now I'd like to see what reactions others have.

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A dynamic lecture by a
Submitted by hes8 on Sun, 2006/03/26 - 7:59pm.
A dynamic lecture by a faculty member at another university was very well done - and I enjoyed it very much. The volume and pace of the delivery was very great.

Later, at the reception, I told this professor how much I enjoyed the lecture and mentioned the pace - and was told that students in this professor's classes complained about the speed and this was a problem.So I suggested that putting up a podcast might help - and wow! got a fast and furious I'll never do that! The students won't come to class if I do!I suggested that putting more information online might free up more formerly-lecture-time for discussion and that the students might attend for that. The reply was that the class was too large for discussion.

Clearly, my suggestions weren't particularly welcome - so I said "Thank you." again, and we were each left to our own thoughts.

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If the lecture goes down
Submitted by nnoakes on Mon, 2006/01/30 - 2:14am.
If the lecture goes down from 200 to 20, what does this say about the lectures for this course? Could this material be put online before the session and then in what way could the pedagogy be changed for the face-to-face session?
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*Good* lectures will still
Submitted by Tama Leaver on Sun, 2006/01/29 - 6:10pm.
*Good* lectures will still attract students in a face to face capacity, bad lectures won't. The technology can't suddenly make all lectures or lecturers better and, in all fairness, many lecturers only have a crowd in front of them because there's no other way to access that information. Given the opportunity to sit through 45 or 90 minutes of some lectures, or skim through them as a podcast, I know I'd choose the latter in several cases.*However*, a good lecture engages the group, often builds a class dynamic, and is both informative and engaging ... those lectures will always have good attendance, regardless of which other media the lectures are also available in. The challenge for lecturers is to try and make sure their lectures are as good as they can be and podcasting (or, if we must use the name, coursecasting) forces a level of scrutiny far too many lecturers have managed to avoid for too long. (In my opinion, at least...)
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