A year ago, when we originally proposed a tweetchat on the subject of lectures, we had this whacky idea of playing Devil’s Advocate. We were going to suggest a defence of the traditional lecture and we were going to argue that it had a place in educators’ toolkits. While we still think this is right, a lot has changed in the past year in response to COVID-19. Lecture halls are empty (or there is a large gap between audience members). Some have moved lectures in their entirety into online platforms like Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate, and Microsoft Teams; others have made the move to a “flipped learning” model. Hence, our focus has shifted and we have some questions we’d love to ponder with you all.

What advice would you give to those looking to replace or augment the venerable lecture? In the past year, if you teach, what have you replaced the “traditional” lecture with? Or, if you’re a learner, what have you had them replaced with? Whatever your role in education, what tips would you give to educators wanting to build teaching presence when they are not able to interact with their students in a physical space, or to take advantage of the usual visual cues that help to show when an audience is engaged in their learning?

What have you seen, or done, that you think worked best this past year? What would you recommend to colleagues or your lecturers? What went really well and that you think there should be more of? And what sorts of things leave lots of room for improvement? What have you done (or seen, or experienced) that just bombed, and that you never want to see or do again?

Looking to the future – when it is safe for us to congregate in physical spaces again, what do you think lectures could be used for? Does the long monologue format still have a place in Higher Education? If yes, in what contexts?

This chat will be a safe space where colleagues (we use a broad definition here to include anyone interested in learning in HE) can share their “warts and all” experiences of the last year, and collectively see how we can learn from our successes and … less successful moments.

Sarah Honeychurch (@NomadWarMachine) is a Teaching Fellow in the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow, with research interests in the serendipitous emergence of learning in participatory cultures and authentic models of assessment as learning in HE. She’s a regular participant and lurker in the LTHEChat, and an avid knitter.

Apostolos Koutropoulos (“AK”) (@koutropoulos) is the Program Manager for the Applied Linguistics Online Program at UMass Boston. He is also an associate lecturer in the Instructional Design MEd Program at UMass Boston where he teaches courses in Instructional Design. He holds a BA in Computer Science, an MBA with a focus on Human Resources, an MS in Information Technology, an MEd in Instructional Design, and an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Definitely an example of a lifelong learner! He is interested in: open education, communities of practice, educational technology, linguistic corpora, MOOCs and lurkers. AK is currently a doctoral candidate at Athabasca University.

Lenandlar Singh (@Lenandlar) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Guyana and a PhD student at Lancaster University, England. He holds a BSc in Computer Science, a Post Graduate Diploma in Education, and an MSc in Internet Applications Development. He is a big fan of Twitter and spends his research time exploring the adoption (or lack of) of social networks in higher education and informal learning contexts.

The Wakelet for this chat can be found here