IMPALA Informal Mobile Podcasting and Learning Adaptation

Lectures and Seminars Podcasts - Department of Geography, University of Sussex

Introduction
This case study is based on an example of using podcasting technology to provide lecture and seminar recordings. The podcasts were developed by a lecturer who teaches two modules: a level one compulsory module 'Dynamic Earth' and a level three module called 'Palaeoenvironments and Human Impact', at the Department of Geography, University of Sussex. The case study will introduce audience to the modules' information, rational of using podcasts, and most importantly, students' perceived benefits of listening to such podcasts and the lecturer's plan on future development.

Module context
'Dynamic Earth' is a level one compulsory module. Around 80-90 students enrolled in this module each year. The module is taught through two one-hour lectures per week and is assessed by a 30-minute mid-term test and a 30-minute end-of-term test.

'Palaeoenvironments and Human Impact' is a level three module. About 20-30 students enrolled in this module each year. The module is taught through a one-hour lecture, a one-hour seminar, and a two-hour practical session per week, and is assessed by a 2000-word essay, a 15-minute seminar presentation, a 1500-word practical write up, and a two-hour end-of-year exam. The one-hour weekly seminar is led by students. They are divided into small groups of 3, given a topic for their presentation and general readings around that topic. They will be asked to conduct their own research and present their in-depth understanding of the topic at the seminar, and led the discussion among peers followed by their presentation.

Purpose of using podcasts
The purpose for podcasting lectures for the two modules is twofold: students can use them as a revision tool and revisit them to develop a better understanding of the subject-specific difficult or complex concepts.

Students who studied the two modules are introduced with some quite difficult and complex concepts, especially in the level three module 'Palaeoenviorment'. About half of the students who enrolled in this module were BA geography students who do not have a strict mathematical and scientific background, therefore, might struggle even more with the difficult concepts introduced in this module. Podcasting lectures gave students the opportunity to revisit the lectures if they had any difficulties with any of the difficult concepts.

The lecturer of these two modules produced a list of threshold or difficult concepts that students might have struggled with.

For 'Dynamic Earth' module:

• Time: deep/geological time, absolute time, rates of activity
• Seismic processes (P-waves, S-waves, surface waves, etc)
• Mantle state: solid but convects
• Viscosity (of lavas, of the asthenosphere)
• Earth structure: lithosphere/asthenosphere (but no change in composition)
• Tectonic plates and processes
• Partial melting/ fractional crystallisation
• Rock deformation mechanisms (creep etc)

For 'Palaeoenvironments' module:

• Critical interpretation of practical data
• Thermohaline circulation/ bi-polar see-saw
• Challenging paradigms using evidence-based argument, e.g. megafaunal extinction, patterns and timings different on different continents (so-same mechanisms?)
• Biogeographical and refugial concepts
• Human impact - contribution to global warming on long timescales?

The purpose of making seminars available through podcasting is to promote collaborative learning among peers. Being able to go back to students' presentation as well as discussion about a particular topic can be useful for them to develop ideas for their essays. It was also expected to be useful for developing students' in-depth understanding and critical thinking about the topic covered through interaction and questioning.

Application
For 'Dynamic Earth' module, two lecture recordings, one hour each in duration were made available on a weekly basis. For 'Palaeoenviroments and Human Impact' module, a one-hour lecture recording and a one-hour student seminar recording were made available on a weekly basis. All the podcasts were delivered through Moodle VLE at Sussex.

Technology
Both the lectures and student seminars were recorded by an Olympus digital recorder in MP3 or WMA format, and transferred to the course site at Moodle VLE soon after the lecture or seminar.

Evaluation
The evaluation of student learning experience through podcasting was gathered through a focus group interview with 3 students and a questionnaire survey with 75 students who studied the 'Dynamic Earth' module; a focus group interview with 3 students and a questionnaire survey with 14 students who studied the 'Palaeoenviroments and Human Impact' module.

Students' perceived benefits of using podcasts
Feedback from students on their use of podcasts as a learning tool is overwhelmingly positive. Two themes emerged.

A revision/backup tool
Many students used podcasting lectures as a revision and backup tool to catch up the things they missed in the lectures and fill in the gaps in their notes.

"I listened to a few as I went along, because I though I missed in the lecture, I can listen to again.."

"This year, I think I listened to one because I didn't really catch up a lot what's going on in the lecture. I'll probably listen to more for revision really."

Many perceived the modules they studied quite hard. It was easier for them to concentrate on what the lecturer was talking about in the face-to-face lectures, and listened back to the lecture recordings to make better notes.

"I listened to almost all of them because I found quite difficult to make notes, very complicated, so I did that at home from the podcasts."

"I found it difficult to write notes and understand what they're saying, then your notes didn't make a lot more sense. I think it's much better, just sit and listen, and contributed to discussion and then come back to it later to make notes."

Cognitive benefits
Enhancing understanding of difficult concepts

As many students perceived the course they were taking as quite difficult, they believed that it was a good mechanism to provide lecture recordings which allowed them to go back to the lecture materials and improve understanding.

"It's a good mechanism to be able to come back to a difficult and complicated course like this. "I can't.how I.Mick's course because it's a quite difficult course, hard course."

Many of them reported how they used the lecture recordings, by listening to the hard parts of the lectures to gain a better understanding.

"I listened to the hard session I thought was difficult to revising, just to get back over it."

"Yeah, I did the same thing as I just picked up the lectures that I thought the hard material that I wasn't quite sure about, then I listen to the podcast and going over and make notes as well."

Some of the students on the course were from a BA geography background. They were the ones who struggled in particular with the scientific concepts and terminologies.

"I think it's partly because of my background is not scientific background.It just takes a little while for some people to understand, how you talk about these things, how different ways to speaking these things you're not used to hearing..so it took me a little while to understand it."

"Well, I'm an English major actually, so all the science stuff doesn't really come easily for me...if you got more technical, the more difficult."

"I found particularly the 'Tectonic plates and processes' is really useful to go back over, and definitely the 'Partial melting/fractional crystallisation', because it's really scientific."

For these students, the podcasting lectures gave them the opportunity to repeat the lectures at their own pace to get over these difficult concepts.

"I think for me is, if you got a lot more scientific term, the style is quite, you got a lot more in details and scientific, if I was getting lost, switching off for a moment in a lecture could be miss something crucial.so go back and listen to the podcast."

"Things that are quite complex, because I do Human Geography, so the science side is quite difficult to me. So that (podcasting lecture) helps quite a lot."

"I think particular topics sometimes you need to listen to a few more times before you understand it. Some of them might be just a bit technical. You try to understand the word they're using. By the end of the lecture, you come to understand the vocabulary a bit more.so you listen to it again, you get to understand it."

Some of the concepts were perceived particularly difficult to understand because they were completely new to the students. For example, one student identified three concepts were difficult to understand: 'Seismic processes (P-waves, S-waves, surface waves, etc), 'Partial melting/fractional crystallisation' and 'Rock deformation mechanisms (creep etc)'. And the reason was they were new concepts and completely unfamiliar to her.

"I've taken some geography before in first year and in high school, but those three things definitely were new comers, so definitely they're unfamiliar to me..They are new terms, new concepts to me."

The second student identified 'Megafaunal extinction' and 'Biogeographical and refugial were difficult for the same reason.

"I think it's because I've never heard before.I had no idea what 'refugial' is all about, so it was like first time to hear about it, so just go back once I knew a bit more about it."

Both students believed that going back to the lecture recordings helped them to gain a better idea of these new concepts.

Some of the concepts were not necessarily difficult, but rather complex. For example, one student identified 'partial melting/fractional crystallisation' and 'rock deformation mechanisms (creep etc)' were complex. Being able to go back to the podcasting lectures helped her develop a better understanding of these complex processes.

"It was just kind of more complex, it wasn't so difficult, I feel it's quite complex. When you were in a lecture, it's not like too quickly, but if you switch off, then you lost, I just found it easy to sit back and go through it at my own time."

Allowing deep and independent learning

Students tend to study more on the module with the podcasting lectures available. They reported that podcasting lectures allowed students more opportunities to conduct further study on the subject, by doing more independent readings and research.

"I think I do more readings for the courses where I had got the podcasts.I think it makes more sense if I got the lecture [recordings]."

"When you got a backup like podcast, you don't really have to do the sort of basic reading, just to get the understanding going, whereas, you got the podcasts, you just read around the subjects, and you do more complex reading."

"I think it makes the lecturers to do more what they're supposed to do, giving you an introduction or something..You could have been spending time doing more complex more interesting reading."

By conducting more readings and research around the topics, students made more sense of what they had learnt from the lectures.

"And you can go away and read other things, journals or something, and come back to it again.It seems a lot better if you got away and come back to it."

"Sometimes, he's talking about specific papers that we never had time to read, so it didn't make the whole sense in the seminar, then read it, and listen to the seminar again, and it will more sense."

"I think you can help bring everything together.like if you're reading an article and did not understand the subject, listen to the podcast again, and you realise, 'oh, yeah, that's how they interlinked', it's quite useful to draw together."

Listening to students' presentations and discussion was also perceived offering deep learning opportunities, by sharing insights and developing in-depth understanding of the topic covered. It was found particularly useful for developing ideas for essays.

"(Listening to seminar podcasts) I think it's good for essay questions and exams and general essays because after discussed the questions, and everyone discussed it, you've got a recording of it, you can listen back and you can see what the key points that people brought up, some of the more obscured ones may be you thought more on your own."

"There was a podcast that was sort around my area what I was writing up, just a few things I thought the same way, so you can add more in-depth discussion. So yeah, definitely I'll be listening to that."

Learning from perspective-taking

Many students identified that listening to students' presentation and discussion offered benefits for learning, by sharing different viewpoints and learning from perspective-taking.

"I think it's just useful because you could get people's perspectives they taking from readings, so it's nice to be able to have the discussion recorded."

"I think that's.particularly the seminars. then you get everyone's different opinions where in the lectures you just get the lecturer's opinions. I think particular the seminars are really useful.adding more depth."

"I think like what they were saying, it's so much better you got all different views. People do different readings as well..It's a lot more useful to hear what they perceived to be, what they're taking."

Future work
As the lecture and seminar podcasts developed for these two modules were well-received by students, more and more colleagues within the department started podcasting their lectures and seminars. Sussex is now installing microphones in many lecture theatres, and this practice is rolling out to seminar spaces. Lecturers can record their sessions from the PC set up in the lecture theatre and by simply pressing the button, the recordings will automatically upload onto the Moodle site.

Due to the success of this practice, the lecturer is now planning to expand his experience on using podcasts for field trip preparation. The idea is to use the video footage taken from the students doing their fieldwork for preparing the students next round for their field trips. Both general videos that provide students with more background information about the environment they are going to work and more targeting videos that show them the specific work to be done in each field trip will be made available.

Another development is to build an archive of podcasts based on lab techniques, to demonstrate techniques not covered in students' normal practical sessions and encourage them to conduct more independent learning on how to use equipment.