When some of the students enrolled in History 149 walked into their section during the first week of the semester, they were greeted not by their professor but by their teaching assistant and a videotape.
History professor Alex Roland is teaching his popular military history class using video tape this fall. He became involved with the project when Richard Kohn, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, asked him to teach the class on the UNC television network. Once Roland agreed to teach the class, the course, originally scheduled to take place in a large lecture hall at Duke, was moved into a state-of-the-art TV studio on campus.
The lectures are being broadcast live to UNC-Asheville, UNC-Chapel Hill and Wake Forest, where students can ask Roland questions by microphone.
Only 44 students could fit in the TV studio at Duke, so many of the students enrolled in the class had to watch videotapes of the lectures in two other sections.
Student reaction to this innovative teaching method has been mixed.
"On the first day I walked in and saw a TA and a television," said Trinity junior Noel Miquiabas, a student in one of the videotape sections. "I didn't pay $20,000 to watch a memorex of the class."
Other students said TV teaching has advantages.
"I really like it. If you miss anything, you can go down to the library and watch the tape again," said Trinity junior Eric Bobo.
This is the first time a professor has taught a class on camera at the University.
"Looking over the first of the teacher evaluations, I have been fairly surprised," Roland said. "I expected most students would dislike this manner of teaching. But many seem to think the TA in the class has made all the difference."
Although student opinion has been mixed at Duke, Roland said there have been advantages to students at other schools.
"Hopefully this has been worth enough to the other schools to justify the inconvenience to us," Roland said.
Students at all of the participating schools were told they could use the professor's office hours, but most students have relied on teaching assistants, Roland said.
"I haven't really had a chance to talk to the professor, but it isn't necessarily a problem, I just have more interaction with the TA," Bobo said. "It's done on my own time."
Some students in the non-live videotape sections said they did not feel comfortable having to depend on a TA.
"If I had a question in class, the best the TA could do was hit rewind," Miquiabas said.
Others see a panoply of technological possibilities. This form of teaching will provide a collection of tapes that can act as an archive, said Richard White, dean of Trinity College.
"We're always talking about how we are behind in technology and about the problem of class availability. We have to decide if we are going to expand the class to meet the need, or keep it personal. This will allow us to do both," White said.
Yet Roland said he finds interaction more difficult on the network system, and he said teaching on camera can be a bit constraining.
He said however that he was elated by the technology he was able to utilize in the studio, particularly an overhead camera that allowed him to project books, writing and photos to the class.
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