Recently I had a friend send me a link to an interesting article about lectures, which spurred some deep thoughts and conversations about the lecture method.
While some would argue that lectures are coma inducing, painstaking, note-taking endeavors, lectures allow students to gain a foundation of knowledge and to accumulate a plethora of information before engaging with the facts in a constructive way. There have been numerous times when a student will try to use information before they have achieved mastery of the subject, leading the student to misuse and abuse what little they know. Lectures provide a foundation for students, and how well a student engages with the material depends upon the responsibility the student feels towards the learning process; this is what I would call true student-directed discovery. However, I cannot proceed without stating that teachers can do a lot to motivate students, so this responsibility does not fall on the student alone.
But all this led me to think: Why do lectures get such a bad rap? I honestly believe that unqualified teachers and uninterested students give lectures a terrible name, but why throw out the good with the bad? Lectures are not all bad, and they have a powerful purpose in the learning process. There is some knowledge that students need to be taught. One example that I can think of from my personal experience would be from my psychology and history courses. No one came into the course knowing the material, and if the teacher had not used lecture at the beginning of each unit, the students would not have been able to use that knowledge to inspire deeper thinking. The same can be said of many introductory courses in the secondary and post-secondary levels of education, in the humanities, sciences, and mathematics. At these points in the learning process, students need to be taught through the honest, tried and true transfer of knowledge from the teacher to the student.
I say all of this knowing that there is a time and a place for every method of instruction, so I am not cutting down any other method for the sole purpose of glorifying the lecture. But, I do agree that many experts who call this method outdated or overrated may need to consider that there is merit in the simple exchange of knowledge from teacher to student. Lecture cannot be the only method of teaching used because students benefit from teachers using multiple forms of instruction; but, there are times in which lecture benefits the student, and that cannot be overlooked.
Source Referenced: A Defense for the Benefits of Lecture
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/dont-give-up-on-the-lecture/281624/
While some would argue that lectures are coma inducing, painstaking, note-taking endeavors, lectures allow students to gain a foundation of knowledge and to accumulate a plethora of information before engaging with the facts in a constructive way. There have been numerous times when a student will try to use information before they have achieved mastery of the subject, leading the student to misuse and abuse what little they know. Lectures provide a foundation for students, and how well a student engages with the material depends upon the responsibility the student feels towards the learning process; this is what I would call true student-directed discovery. However, I cannot proceed without stating that teachers can do a lot to motivate students, so this responsibility does not fall on the student alone.
But all this led me to think: Why do lectures get such a bad rap? I honestly believe that unqualified teachers and uninterested students give lectures a terrible name, but why throw out the good with the bad? Lectures are not all bad, and they have a powerful purpose in the learning process. There is some knowledge that students need to be taught. One example that I can think of from my personal experience would be from my psychology and history courses. No one came into the course knowing the material, and if the teacher had not used lecture at the beginning of each unit, the students would not have been able to use that knowledge to inspire deeper thinking. The same can be said of many introductory courses in the secondary and post-secondary levels of education, in the humanities, sciences, and mathematics. At these points in the learning process, students need to be taught through the honest, tried and true transfer of knowledge from the teacher to the student.
I say all of this knowing that there is a time and a place for every method of instruction, so I am not cutting down any other method for the sole purpose of glorifying the lecture. But, I do agree that many experts who call this method outdated or overrated may need to consider that there is merit in the simple exchange of knowledge from teacher to student. Lecture cannot be the only method of teaching used because students benefit from teachers using multiple forms of instruction; but, there are times in which lecture benefits the student, and that cannot be overlooked.
Source Referenced: A Defense for the Benefits of Lecture
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/dont-give-up-on-the-lecture/281624/
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