Lecture 2.0 is it a bad description or hard truth?

The press the Khan Academy has been getting has been casting a lot of light on the use of video to replace lecture. The idea is not new, it's been called likened to the Reverse Lecture or Flipped Classroom.

I've been watching things go by on Twitter and the Blogosphere for a bit. Most of which either supports the KA or points out its flaws. In the past, I've created a number of video lectures and have done some flipping myself. I also currently use video as the primary means of delivering content to my pre-engineering classes. So this debate over the use and effectiveness of video based lecture has been one I've been very interested in.

I really find myself on both sides of the fence on this one. On the one hand research  (at least in physics) has shown that traditional lecture is not very effective. In Physics Education Research different strategies have grown up to make lecture better, some of which include: Peer Instruction, Just in Time Teaching, and Interactive Lecture Demonstrations. Personally, I've all but abandoned lecture in my physics classrooms in favor of the investigation heavy Modeling Physics. However, students often need extra support and they can't always make time to come in and get it. So I still make videos to support student learning.

My pre-engineering classes are about doing stuff. Mostly with electronics and programming. There are many basic skills students need before they can do the really cool stuff. I used to put up detailed instructions, either created by me or found on the web. Building my own textbook. I found most students didn't really read them. So now I deliver the same content in video form. I find more students reading the text I wrote now. Most of my students seem to feel very uncomfortable learning new skills by themselves, but the video lecture gets them started.

Now, what made me decide to sit down and write about this this morning? I was scanning my twitter feed and I ran across this exchange. It made me stop and think about it. "Lecture 2.0" is a great description of video delivered lecture. However, this label is often used as a way of denigrating the idea, but it maybe a fair name.

The original reference is to Web 2.0, so I'll start there. Web 2.0 was hailed as a way that everyone could have a voice on the internet and exchange ideas. Well, we could all do it before. I know of many websites that were basically blogs before blogging started. There were also discussion boards back in the earliest days of the internet (heck, even before the www) that allowed people to communicate and exchange ideas with people a world away. There were even free ways to create your own web pages. What "Web 2.0" did was make it easier and by making it easier drew a lot more people in. This made the experience richer and many would say substantially better. But at a fundamental level it didn't really add anything other than a new way of looking at the opportunities.

Now on to "Lecture 2.0". By feeling denigrated by this label we lend credence to the idea that lecture at it's core doesn't really help most students learn. "Lecture" has been put down for years and is often referred to with catchy names as, "Set and Get," "Sage on the Stage," or "Drill and Kill." So if lecture doesn't really help student learn, why do we still do it even in video form? I ask myself this every time I upload a new video.

So, what do we get with Lecture 2.0? The lecture is still the same for all students, however, the pacing can be individualized. I've often had students tell me they will pause the videos periodically or re-wind to catch something they missed. They can also go back to the lecture any time they want. But at the same time it is still just lecture. Some of this could happen in the classroom. Students ask for clarification or ask you to slow down. They also come in for extra help to fill in notes they missed during class. With web video this is all easier. Delivering lecture as homework gives us the opportunity to look at education differently. Just as Web 2.0 caused us to look at the internet in a new light.

By shifting lecture out of the classroom I've put it in the same role as a textbook. The interaction is one way, text to student. The student can't ask for clarification and the textbook can't check for understanding. So maybe some uses of online video in education should really be labeled "Textbook 2.0". Hey Ma, look your boy is writing a physics textbook! (I don't think she'll be able to stick it to the fridge though)

My understanding of a Flipped classroom is the one sentence description often given. "Lecture happens at home and homework is done in class!" Many professional educators see a lot of potential in this statement. However, as all simplifications, this one is a woefully inadequate description. With lecture removed from the school day teachers can now have more time for other activities, many of which go beyond simple homework. Even if it were just "doing homework" it would still more than that. The teacher can interact with individual students or small groups and have discussions to help lead them to answers. They can ask questions of students they've noticed put a wrong answer to coax the student to see their own mistakes.

My recommendation is this. If you don't really like the idea of your Flipped Classroom being labeled Lecture 2.0 then you need to throw out the one sentence descriptions. Don't try to boil down your methodology to a sentence or two. By trying to make the idea understandable to more people you end up doing the opposite. They end up filling in the gaps for themselves and they don't really do a good job of it. For years I tried to get some physics colleagues to tell me what Modeling was. They never would, I now understand they were reticent because they didn't want to over simplify the idea just to satisfy my curiosity. It wasn't until I sat through a 1-2 hour mini-workshop at a DMAPT meeting that I had an inkling of what it meant. After a three week long workshop last summer I think I have a better understanding. Ask me in a year or two and I'll hopefully have solidified my understanding, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to describe it in a way that will have much meaning unless you give me an hour of your time.