Session: Research Posters

Paper Number: 110622

110622 - Effectiveness of Short Lecture Videos During the Covid Pandemic and Beyond 

Traditional teaching as well as the use of technology has drastically changed since the pandemic. Every educator teaching a course had to adopt to a new online or hybrid modality during the past two years.

As a result, the inclusion of recorded videos in different learning management systems (LMS) has become a routine task.

This short paper will examine how short videos (between 5-12 minutes in length) will enhance the learning environment.

The videos are typically covering the step-by-step process of solving a problem related to a given topic. It must be noted that these videos are used as additional resources which are meant to compliment the traditional teaching.

Three different technologies are used to create these videos. Before the pandemic and the eventual move to online teaching, I used an App called “Show Me “to prepare my short videos. The videos were created by writing on a notepad and speaking at the same time. It did not have a video of myself talking and engaging with the audience.

In 2019, I used an in-house technology which is known as a “Lightboard”.

The Lightboard contains an LED lighting on specialized glass to create a transparent white board that illuminates your writing while recording the board and your lecture. The instructor faces the camera and writes normally on the transparent white board that will be flipped in the resulting video.

 

Invented by Professor Michael Peshkin of Northwestern University, the Lightboard is a transparent glass whiteboard illuminated with LED lights. Teachers and presenters can write complex material using neon markers that glow on a black background, bringing information to life like a colorful hologram. Unlike a traditional blackboard or whiteboard where the user stands in front, the Lightboard requires that the user stands behind it. In addition to enabling viewers to see the presenter’s face while simultaneously seeing text and images, this approach facilitates better interactions between presenters and their audience. 

 

This method allows the presenter to better demonstrate lecture materials, which includes problem-solving and creating drawings such as equations and diagrams while enabling the presenter to face students without blocking the written content on the board. 

 

In the past three years many educators were forced to learn new technologies such zoom or Team
Meeting which allowed us to use this technology in our lecture presentations.

The third method of creating these short videos is to use the Zoom meeting recording capabilities.

 

A survey was done for every course taught in the past two years to measure the effectiveness of the videos. The survey results showed that students benefited from the additional resources in the form of short lecture/example videos.

Presenting Author: masoud olia Wentworth Institute of Technology

Presenting Author Biography: Masoud Olia received his BS, MS and Ph.D. in the field of mechanical engineering from Northeastern University. He has been teaching since 1984 at different universities and working as a professor in the mechanical and electromechanical engineering programs at Wentworth Institute of Technology since 1996. Dr. Olia has taught variety of courses such as Statics, Dynamics, Mechanics of Material, Vibrations and System Dynamics.
He has authored “FE, Fundamental of Engineering Exam”, by Barron’s publishing company. The third edition of his book was published in March 2015 and addresses the new Computer Based test (CBT). This edition has sold many copies on Amazon since March of 2015.
Professor Olia has published many technical papers. Papers include topics in the areas of stress concentration in hybrid composites, dynamics response of adhesively bonded joints and biomechanics.
He appeared in a WBZ-TV Channel 4 news interview as an expert on the MBTA Newton crash. He has also participated as a science consultant on the WGBH children’s show called “FETCH” in the summer of 2007. Dr. Olia helped the kids with the engineering design process to build and test a cake protector.

Professor Olia has had consulting experience in finite element analysis. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Massachusetts and has lectured extensively the FE and PE review courses at several universities.

Authors:

masoud olia Wentworth Institute of Technology