A static recording of a synchronous Zoom conversation doesn’t really count as “asynchronous” learning, at least for the purposes of access. Nor does a mere recording of a face-to-face classroom session.
Robust asynchronous learning requires that students can engage (as full participants) no matter how and when they are available. If we want to provide access to students who can’t be present synchronously, making them flies on the wall after the fact isn’t enough.
We have to build for asynchronous, design real points of entry for students who can’t be physically present at a particular time or in specific ways. This can (and should) intersect with more traditional synchronous face-to-face approaches.
Some examples: 1) A live text chat where students not present in the moment can read later and insert their thoughts into existing threads that continue.
2) Students could brainstorm key questions asynchronously online, discuss those questions synchronously face-to-face, and then students who couldn’t be present in the moment could write or record their own responses, which then seed future online and face-to-face discussions.
3) A short provocation, a mini-lecture (both recorded and presented live), could jump start discussion in small groups with some of those small groups working synchronously in a classroom and some working asynchronously online.
Too often, we build for synchronous and find ways to make “content” also available asynchronously. The folks who can’t be present usually get an inferior copy of the original experience.
As I’ve said before and will say again, at this moment, we should start by designing for the least privileged, most marginalized students, the ones with the least access.
And before we just go on recording stuff and saying we’ve done the necessary work of providing “equal access,” can we have a discussion about the security and privacy concerns raised when we start putting cameras in every classroom or decide to record everything by default?
