So . . . this is the first week back for school and university, and I thought I would dedicate this week's posts to education, particularly the higher kind. As someone with a vested interest in the topic I am keen to learn the opinions of my reader(s). Today I am going to discuss something that I feel very strongly about, which is how information and knowledge are passed to students.
In yesterday's Globe and Mail, Julia Christensen Hughes, the dean of the faculty of business at the University of Guelph, basically expressed that lectures do not work and that teaching at universities must be more interactive (in the classical sense, not the electronic sense). Simply reading/reciting/giving lectures to (or at) students is ineffective, she says, and you must pause and ask questions of the students (gasp!) or solicit questions from them (double gasp!). Predictably, several university professors wrote letters to the editors disagreeing with her.
I, however, happen to agree with her points. From the time I was a university student myself I hated lectures, and I think I hate giving them more than I hated hearing them. We no longer live in an age where all of the knowledge on a particular topic resides in peoples heads - we have books, websites, etc. If you want to know some information, as Hughes says, you google it. I remember sitting in lectures in undergrad and thinking that I would just prefer if the professor would print out the lecture and give it to us, so that we can read it on our own time. Really, does hearing a professor talk add value over the written word? It can, and with some profs it does, but in many cases the answer is no.
Where value can be added is in teaching students to think critically, make decisions, and express opinions. In other words, participate in a discussion. This seems to be more the norm in business schools than other faculties (disclaimer: I am not saying that all business schools do this and all other faculties do not). In my courses, the learning goals are for students to develop their own way to face business situations. I assign textbook readings, but in class the discussion of the text focuses on clarifying what is not well understood, challenging conventional wisdom, and applying the knowledge. To simply repeat the text without adding value (as was the case in many an undergrad lecture I attended) is pointless.
Ultimately, the students in university are going to need to get jobs (well, most of them) and these jobs will entail the performance of tasks and the making of decisions (well, most of them - not academia). Lectures are not the best training method for these end goals. Lecture with discussion is a different story.
Leading the class in discussion requires different skills, knowledge, and experience than do lectures. I am not saying that a professor who can do one or the other is necessarily smarter or more knowledgeable. I for one could not deliver 1-3 hour lectures without wanting to hang myself (I don't like to hear myself talk too much . . . no, really I don't . . . writing this blog, that's another matter) and I know I would not be good at it. And I can understand why university lecturers would push back against this idea, as it would lead to greater uncertainty as well as the need to work in order to acquire new skills.
I certainly wasn't very good at leading class discussions when I started, but I think I have improved with time: practice makes perfect (no, I don't think I'm perfect, it's an expression). Which is exactly the point - I'm advocating giving the students the opportunity to practice expressing their opinions and analytical skills in a safe environment, before they have to go out and do so in the real world.
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