What happens to the lecture when a class moves online?

One of the biggest challenges in moving a class online from a face-to-face format is figuring out what to do with the portion of the class that was spent in a classroom/lecture hall. Since our workload formula is 2 hours of work outside of class for each hour in class, the classroom portion, in theory, accounts for 1/3 of the learning time. The remaining 2/3 could conceivably remain the same -- readings, assignments, group projects, etc. with some changes needed to make things work online.

My experience working with a wide range of instructors has been that those with previous pedagogical training handle the transition from physical to virtual classroom better than those who base their teaching approach primarily or solely on  the lecture model. If classroom time was mainly devoted to someone standing in front of students talking and working their way through presentation slides, things may not go smoothly if we try to replicate that experience online. (Whether that experience is worth replicating is a different question with almost always a one word answer - No).

Our least desirable option is to upload the presentation slides to the online class and make the mistake of calling them the presentation. The presentation really involves a person explaining what's on the slides (although that may not always be what happens), so removing the presenter from the experience can leave us with a set of badly constructed slides whose meaning is uncertain and missing any entertainment value or potential for interaction. A second option is to record audio to go with the slides, and this can be effective as long as the audio is presented in a concise manner, the presentation doesn't go on forever, and it doesn't consist of reading a series of bullet points. This may require re-thinking the purpose of the presentation and making it shorter or breaking it up into segments. A bad presentation does not get better when it is recorded and put online as a video, but at least the presenter won't be able to see the students falling asleep as they watch it.

A third possibility is to make the lectures much shorter. Microlectures of 1-5 minutes might work in some cases, but anything more than 20 minutes is probably too long, in my experience. Students are more likely to watch or listen to several five minute presentations on individual topics than watch one long presentation which incorporates all of the shorter ones. Unless you have a captive audience, keep it short. Remember, Facebook is only a click away for your online students and searching through trending topics on Twitter is probably more interesting than watching you read your bullet points, even if they zoom in from the left and flash.

Another option is to forget the lecture and substitute other learning activities and materials. Give students a topic to research and explain to their peers. Use forums to discuss issues raised by the reading materials. Use one of the TED presentations as a starting point for a discussion or analysis of an issue. Listening to someone talk is not an effective way to learn. It can spark interest or provide guidance, but it should be followed by something else that is more engaging. Students must be actively involved in the learning process, so thinking about alternative ways for students to learn what you are trying to teach them is probably a better use of your time than recording audio and redesigning your presentations.

If you really like lectures, consider using a recording of someone else's lecture. These are widely available online for free at sites like Academic Earth, YouTubeEDU, Open Courseware Consortium, and iTunesU. Why duplicate the effort?

Check out Don't Lecture me by Emily Hanford for an interesting audio program about lectures and alternatives.