More novel teaching methods, or anthropology lecture as spectacle?

More novel teaching methods, or anthropology lecture as spectacle?:
Last year I posted about Latrobe Uni anthropologist Alberto Gomes and his use of a Bollywood flash mob in his first introduction to anthropology lecture. Given how much interest the last video generated, with over 400,000 hits on Youtube, I suppose it was inevitable that he would have another go at doing something out of the ordinary.

I really liked last year’s use of Bollywood to both introduce themes from the course and to engage students in that crucial first lecture. It was easy enough to see how it could be used to set up key issues to be dealt with throughout the course. This year’s effort is a little harder to parse. It brings together elements of different musical and performance traditions, a hip-hop anthem with a kind of feel-good, we-are-the-world sort of vibe. But it’s harder for me to see what the teaching points here are. Is it creating a spectacle for its own sake? Also, maybe it was the way the video was cut, but this time round all the students seemed to be in on the joke from the start, which spoils the “flash mob” dimension of the exercise.
Anyway, I don’t want to be too critical. I applaud the effort to play with the usual lecture mode of teaching and finding ways to make material more memorable. This year’s effort didn’t work so well for me. Maybe it would have helped to know how the performance was used to introduce themes for the course, and maybe these elements could have been included in, or with, the video to give it some context for us internet viewers.

Filed under: teaching