Dean Ed Pittarelli of Bergen Community College
Ed Pittarelli is the Dean of Virtual Studies at Bergen Community College in New York and has spearheaded the institution’s vision for lecture capture at school. Dean Pittarelli a guest blogger sharing the school’s findings surrounding lecture capture here.
Over the past 5 years, Bergen Community College has expanded the focus of its Center for Instructional Technology from primarily supporting the online environment to support of the entire College, culminating in the renaming of the center to the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. While strong growth was experienced in the portfolio of online courses as it grew from three percent to nine percent of the College, it was recognized that the vast majority of learning experiences are still occurring in the classroom. Meeting the needs of a learner in the community college setting is a challenging task, given the wide spread of abilities that open enrollment brings. A major goal for faculty and administration at the College is to maximize learning outcomes for all students.
The goal for lecture capture in the classroom was defined as providing a means for all students to better understand the subject matter through repetition of classroom lectures for most courses. It was expected that the strongest impact would be on the students who were struggling to keep current in the courses. A secondary goal was established for the Speech Communication department, where capture of speeches was identified as a strong teaching tool in identifying strengths and weaknesses. In addition, watching your own speech is great feedback as to what others, including your professor, observed.
The results of our installation far exceeded our expectations. We have taken data on two courses, a biology course and a drafting course. In both cases, we saw approximately ten percent gains in the average grades across the classes with a slight gain in attendance. In general, the students seemed to be more engaged. This is attributed to the lecture capture increasing their ability to be successful. We have seen similar gains, although we have not quantified them yet in the area of Financial Accounting. Most interesting is that the lecture capture has major impact across a spectrum of subject areas. The other benefit we have found is that faculty members do not need to spend as much time going over prior material since the students can review the captured lectures.
In the Speech Communications area, lecture capture has become an essential tool for both students and faculty in providing the student with an actual view of their speech to match with faculty comments.
Where do we go from here? This fall, we will capture our first English Basic Skills classes. The goal here is to provide strong support for students who are building the skills they need to be successful in college. We will measure the learning outcomes against prior years to gauge impact. We are also going to open our first lecture capture classroom in our new southern location to introduce the technology to faculty teaching there.
Dean Pittarelli, Dean Langston of VCU and Dean Jennings of UKY are also featured in a webinar. Click here to watch: From the Dean’s Desk: A Candid Discussion About Lecture Capture’s Role in Blended Learning
