LECTURES WITH LONG-TERM USE
Save time in the long run.
Making an accessible lecture can take a great deal of time. So, make a lecture that stands the test of time. Follow the tips below to make your lecture reusable.
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Avoid “aging” information.
Aging Dates
- Homework assignment deadlines (e.g., or “due February 21st”)
- The semester (e.g., “Spring 2021”)
- Class times (e.g., “see you on Monday”)
- Past events (e.g., “10 years ago”)
This information may change each semester and can go in other places, such as your course shell, syllabus, or an email.
Aging Examples
Talk about current events as past events. For example:
- In 2020, I made a lecture that mentioned the “Word of the Year” by the Linguistics Society of America. Instead of saying, “this year, the word-of-the-year is COVID”, I said, “In 2020, the word-of-the-year was COVID”. This way the information would be relevant whether students watched the lecture in 2020 or a later year.
Aging Details
Avoid details that may change. For example:
- Office hours
- Contact information
- Course name
This information may change each semester and can go in other places, such as your course shell, syllabus, or an email.
Homework Assignments
It’s natural to end a class lecture with instructions on upcoming assignments, but if change that assignment in the future, then that portion of the video is not outdated. Consider putting assignment related information in a seperate video or just in the course shell (or other place) as text – both alternatives can be easily updated if there are changes.
References to Other Lectures
Be careful when referencing past content the students may or may not have covered. For example, if you are using a lecture between two different classes, then saying, “last week we talked about ___” may be confusing to the class that didn’t cover that topic the prior week. If you need to reference a prior topic, then consider…
- Putting it in the course shell as text.
- Introducing it like it is new information in the video.
- Saying something to the effect of, “In another video, I speak about __. If you haven’t seen that video and would like access to it (let me know) or (here is the link).”