The use of audio recordings are indispensable in teaching music and EFL (English as a Foreign Language). But in other subjects not commonly associated with aural or oral skills, perhaps only listening helps focus one's attention to the lesson - causing the mind to imagine images associated with the content of the lesson. In this way, the material may become more internalized and, thereby not forgotten easily.
I remember the days before TV when people would listen to radio programs with focused attention, rather than the casual awareness often associated with combined visual and aural stimulii - maybe because of the higher bandwidth of visual inputs and the enhanced chance of introducing distractions?
I have first hand experience of recordings and making use of this too to enhance student learning. Many times the digital part of the interactive lesson helps in creating an impact on the learning. "Vocaroo" recordings or iPhone recording and video can help in knowing that teaching and learning can be impacted with digital media.
To expand on this notion, consider the VISUALIZATION technique such as described in the various "Inner Game of ..." books.
In these books, the technique is to visualize (i.e., imagine) a challenging task to be performed. By repeatedly visualizing the entire process, one greatly facilitates mastering the task.
In a similar fashion, by closing one's eyes while listening to an oral description of solving, say a math problem, after having been introduced/familiarized with the solution, the solution may be indelibly etched in your memory.
Some students learn metter by listening, others by looking. the role of audio recording should be used appropriately.
I do not have experience in use of audio recordings, but I agree that audio recordings can develop skills for mental visualization. However, I think that in the case of science subjects it wont give any positive change in the acquired knowledge. In my opinion, it is a step (or maybe more steps) back in the didactics. We all talk about communication student-student and students-teacher, about hands-on and minds-on, about research and inquiry based education etc. Audio recordings have very narrow spectrum of possibilities. The 21st century children are multi-communication and multi-sensation beings. Their senses need to be stimulated by more than one stimulus: audio, video, touch, smell ... Most of all, they are visual beings. We have to find exercises which will develop the skills for visualization, because these children lack such skills, but I think that audio recordings wont do the thing. I must say again that I do not have any research which includes audio recordings and even more, I do not have any experience with application of audio recordings in teaching and learning. My opinion is based on my feelings and experience in application of experiments, video clips, animations and simulations.
Thanks for all of your valid comments. My thought is that it should not be the only method used, but it could be a new and novel method to include in our tool box - it may be effective especially if a student is having great difficulty mastering a given skill using more conventional methods.
Hello Antonio,
Texas A&M university provided some great audio recordings of statistics lectures some years ago. They were illustrating some rarely used features of SPSS, a statictics software package. In my experience they were a great help in addition to the SPSS syntax files provided on the same website.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you think the audio recordings helped focus one's attention?
Hi Antonio,
the audio recordings served as a step-by-step-instruction, you could execute the task simultaneously. So it provides an excellent connection of instruction and practice, especially on tasks with whom you feel uncertain..
Hello Antonio, I teaches one of the premedical subject in a Medical college, we uses different types of audio-visual aids. One of the professor uses chalk and blackboard while other prefers power point presentations but we never tried the audio tapes because they do not make that impact on the students.
I believe that there is a useful distinction to be made between "information transfer" and "information internalisation" or "learning". As a transfer mechanism, audio is far less efficient than text and graphics. Most academics read 3-4 times faster than speech, which leads naturally to Tufte's observations on the stupidifying effects of most PowerPoint presentations.
However, if your goal is to facilitate learning, audio may be one of many effective mechanisms -- insofar as the learner will use what is heard to build an internal cognitive structure. When the learner participates mindfully in the construction of an idea/image, the resulting construct will be more firmly embedded in memory.
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