Dr. Daniel Miller, “Augmented Lecturing” and Screencast

For about a decade, Dr. Daniel Miller of the Religion Department has been developing and using a pedagogical method in his classroom that he calls augmented lecturing, which employs a tight synergy between speech and video/audio to drive the narrative line of the lecture. Since instituting the method, he has noticed extremely positive learning outcomes—with learners of all ages—and is now working on a major research project intended to formally measure the efficacy of augmented lecturing.

Although augmented lecturing was developed for the classroom, Dr. Miller found that it could easily be transplanted with success to the screen after faculty were obliged to begin teaching online last March. To the surprise of Dr. Miller, some of his students were even watching his online lectures with their families, a true testament to the effectiveness of the method: “I had students writing me that they were watching my lecture videos with their parents at home, which was, as you can imagine, remarkable to read. Given the imperative for online instruction currently (and, I’d suspect, going forward), I think that’s extremely significant.”

Dr. Miller’s work employing augmented lecturing is now featured in Cascade Journal of Knowledge. Launched only last year, Cascade is a unique and innovative open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal that publishes short screencasts (videos), instead of written articles, on academic topics. The goal of this journal is for students to have access to a credible online knowledge source, approved by professors. When informed of the Journal, Dr. Miller saw an undeniable connection between the power of his augmented lecturing technique and the Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) mission of Cascade.

After discussion with Cascade’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Miller started working on a screencast on the concept of 666 (“the number of the beast”) in the Book of Revelation. The screencast was published in late December, and has quickly become one of the most viewed of the Journal.

When Dr. Miller was asked to comment about this publication vis-à-vis the profile of Bishop’s University, he had this to say about its potential significance: “This is a new, and unique, journal, and a Bishop’s professor has published in it. Through this publication, “augmented lecturing” as a pedagogical term is now officially on the board in the “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” domain, and it’s associated with Bishop’s University.”

Watch Dr. Daniel Miller’s publication “666” on his Youtube channel.

Dr. Miller will be presenting on his augmented lecturing technique through the Maple League’s Virtual Teaching and Learning Centre in February, so follow the Maple League of Universities on Facebook for updates!