The staff who have engaged with Panopto have produced a number of innovative ways with which to use the tool. What follows are broad descriptions of each of these.
‘Quick videos’ on problematic or key aspects of the content
This technique is used by individuals who have identified a generic weakness of understanding by the students. This identification may have been through previous experience or from a growing number of emails requesting the same information. The academic then makes a recording, usually at their desk, that covers the particular issue. They then make that available to either all the students or the particular ones involved. They do this either by sharing it on Canvas, or emailing the link to the students. The staff who do this say that it have has immediate impact in reducing student queries, but also allows time to concentrate on helping students with the more interesting aspects of the subject. This focus on key aspects could be connected with the research around ‘Threshold Concepts’1. This is where a key conceptual framework needs to be understood by the students in order to link other concepts and to take the student through a conceptual doorway to deeper understanding. More research is needed to establish the best ways to achieve this.
Flipped Classroom
Similar to the ‘Quick Videos’ some module teams are attempting to ‘flip’ aspects of the learning in a more formalised way. Staff are creating short introductory videos for students to watch prior to attending the class. Some of the class time is then used for more complex individual and group activities and solve problems. The idea is to shift face to face learning time towards active learning rather than passive delivery. This is not a straightforward process, and requires time and effort to plan and execute. Staff attempting to do this are driven by a desire to find a new delivery method to improve engagement from what are seen as a new generation of students.
Blended online tasks
This method uses short recordings as part on a formative online task with a discussion board or quiz, to help pose a problem or explain a scenario. A number of these (3-4) would be released during a semester. The staff member reports a high level of engagement, and an increase in the quality of in-class discussion. They also report that these are reused each year, without a need to create additional tasks. This method is almost the reverse of the ‘flipped’ classroom as it requires students to engage in learning activities outside of the classroom. Both of these processes empathise the importance of encouraging active learning and ‘time on task’ to increase engagement.
Recording of guest speakers
LJMU staff have good connections with external experts that can inspire and provide experiential knowledge to students. A number of interviewed staff mentioned their use and reuse of recordings be externals. This could create useful banks of content to support future students and students who missed the opportunity to hear them.
Recording of student presentations
Individual lectures, programme teams, and even schools, have created processes for the recording of student presentations for assessment. The recordings typically use a single video camera recording the students, and screen capture the PowerPoints with the students’ narration over the top. The majority of these are for internal moderation, access by external examiners, and in case of any student complaints. Very few have explored the use of the recordings to help students to reflect and improve. One programme team has developed a whole process that allows formative assessment before final submission that involves students viewing the recordings. Another module leader uses the recordings in class to feedback to all the students on group presentations. Staff who have used the system shared a number of ways in which they are utilising the system.
Presentations are a widely used assessment process that can occur many times within a programmes, is acknowledged as an important employment skill, but also seen by many students as particularly stressful process. The careful and considerate use of recordings could improve skills over time and reduce anxiety.
Supporting Referrals
Individuals and one school are using recordings to support referral students. This is to mitigate the issues around lack of face to face support during the referral period. The staff typically record a video of themselves talking through the assignment. There has been little research to establish how useful these recording are, however the belief is that students feel less isolated when completing their assignment. More research is needed to find out what information would help students the most and how the recordings are used.
Sharing Resources
This is where staff who have made recordings are beginning to share these more widely with others. The possibility of Panopto to allow very large numbers of students from benefiting from a single recording is something faculties and schools need to be encouraged. The efficiency of a single recording of for instance a common lab technique could support 1000s of students for years to come. It could also release staff time from repeating the process many times over to reinvest that time talking about more complex aspects of the curriculum. However, individual staff may not have the level of influence to develop this within a school or faculty.
Lecture Capture
The individual staff that do all the delivery on a module have started to record all or some of the sessions. These are then release in their entirety to all students on the course or edited down to a particular section, or released to a particular group of students judged as having the greatest need to access. This group is typically students who have legitimate reasons for none attendance, or may belong to a different cohort or level. Those recording and releasing all sessions see this are a method to support students with minimal effort on their behalf. Those that edit that release excerpts are following similar ideas to the ‘quick videos’ namely supporting the most important or difficult aspects of the curriculum.