To the Rescue When You're Teaching 3 Sections of the Same Course

I've talked about using YouTube before.  It's an excellent Web 2.0 tool anyone can use to teach themselves about almost anything under the sun.  I have found good quality instructional content on Youtube from some of the best institutions in the world.  Here's an episode of one of my favorite higher education courses that can be found on YouTube.  I watch an episode whenever I can squeeze an hour out of my day for something not related to Ph.D. coursework.  The YouTube videos suggest that you go to the full site, justiceharvard.org to ask question, interact, be a part of the community of learners at Harvard.  I believe educators could learn a lot from studying Sandel's two-pronged Web 2.0 model. 

Justice What's the Right Thing To Do 

Episode 11

The Claims of Community

Michael Sandel - HARVARD

So that's common. We've probably all seen course content on Youtube. My kids were using it in middle school for Khan Academy math tutorials.  I tried to think of a new way to use YouTube beyond what I've talked about so far since it's never been the actual title of one of my blogs.  A friend of mine who's also doing her Ph.D. teaches three sections of the same course.  So, she says the same material three times in a day to three different groups of undergraduate students.  The good thing is by the third time some of what she says is automatic; it just flows.  The bad thing as she points out is that she's told the same joke three times and by the third time she doesn't want to say it again.  It was hilarious the first time but seemed rehearsed by the beginning of the afternoon class.  We talked about recording every second class, the one where she's worked out the kinks of the presentation from the first class, for an entire semester. Why? So she can build a repository of lectures for several uses:

• When she wants to switch things up - perhaps a flipped lesson. Students watch at home then discuss or do some assignment in class. 
• When she's going to be away at conferences but students can still come to class with the TA to supervise. 
• Students can replay the recordings at a later time to support their learning/studying 
• Students could give group or individual presentations using YouTube

Then I mentioned my obsession with the Harvard Ethics course.  We decided maybe she could look up someone well known in her field or a fun animated video to take her place as the talking head in the room.  How else might we use YouTube in higher education settings? Something tells me you're more creative than we were.  Leave us some suggestions and I'll highlight them in an updated version of this post and of course, give you full credit.