Reflect: lecture capture launch

As part of the Leicester Learning Institute’s ‘Focus On’ events, Reflect, the University’s new lecture capture service, was launched. Staff were given an opportunity to ask questions about the new system, try it out and discuss the challenges and opportunities offered by lecture capture. In the afternoon, there was a chance to experience lecture capture from a student perspective, looking at ‘flipping’ the classroom to explore how it can be used to enhance practice in learning and teaching.

The launch signifies the start of LLI’s training and communication programme, and we will be offering a mixture of pedagogical and technical sessions within departments, colleges, and a rolling central programme of activities and online resources.

During the day, academic colleagues shared their experiences of using lecture capture so far. Stephan Reiff-Marganiec, from the Department of Computer Science, illustrated how they have been using recorded lectures for distance learning students, as additional material to enhance their learning. Students have been very positive about this extra resource. As many students are international, they preferred to record audio only rather than video, to keep the download time to a minimum.

Dylan Williams, in the Department of Chemistry, explained how they used lecture capture, and how it was particularly beneficial for students who has specific requirements meaning they couldn’t attend lectures. They have has significant demand from students asking that all lectures are captured across all modules. Lecturers found the recording and publishing process intuitive, and they found they didn’t need to make any significant edits to recordings. They haven’t noticed a discernible drop in student attendance so far, as although students benefit from being able to play back the recording as a revision aid, they still also want to attend the full interactive experience of a live lecture.

Chris Willmott from the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology described how he has used lecture capture for flipped classroom teaching. Finally Cas Kramer from Genetics appeared virtually, having pre-recorded his talk since he wasn’t available on the day. Cas described how he recorded an introduction to an educational board game that was used in many different tutorial sessions.

Recordings from the day:

• Introduction and institutional perspective – Mark Peel, Provost (17 mins)
• Student perspective – Rachel Holland Students’ Union President (8 mins)
• More information about Reflect and a demo – Nichola Gretton and Catherine Leyland, LLI (12 mins)
• Experiences with lecture capture – Stephan Reiff-Marganiec, Department of Computer Science (13 mins)
• Lecture capture in Chemistry – Dylan Williams, Department of Chemistry (14 mins)
• Using lecture capture to facilitate flipped learning – Chris Willmott, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology (12 mins)
• Pre-recording a tutorial introduction – Cas Kramer, Department of Genetics (9 mins)