Lecturing is getting increasingly bipolar

In this fifth semester of the COVID-19 pandemic, I can’t help but predict that teaching by way of lectures will be getting more bipolar. I foresee two main modes of lecturing:

1. Increased use of videos in online lecturing rather than live performances
2. Traditional in-person lecturing without serious online presence

This may hardly sound surprising, but some of the underlying mechanics that are leading me to this prediction may. There are two noteworthy developments:

• Students are evermore distracted when listening to a live lecture
• Students are less inhibited / inclined to think before they ask a question

Together, in a live lecture, these two developments have led to students asking significantly more questions about topics that I answered only a couple of minutes ago. Students presumably missed the earlier explanations, because they were distracted by something, and they are less inhibited to ask due to the intermediation by technology (the rare student who shows their face on video).

This increase in questions that should not be is marked. To avoid it, I predict that lecturers will either switch to more video recordings or, if they lecture live, will try to reduce distraction and simply not cater to online participants (if their president lets them).