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4.3.1 Lecture
The teaching strategy most commonly used in higher education is the formal lecture. This is true in spite of the availability of many other strategies and research showing that lecturing is not the most effective way to help students learn. It is widely assumed that lecturing is about the only strategy available to teach large classes (100 or more students) and that most students prefer discussion classes. In fact, lectures are used in small classes as well as large, and some students prefer lectures, partly because little energy and little preparation is required of them. Lectures can be designed to include student involvement and can be an effective strategy for achieving some learning goals. We therefore suggest here some reasons to use lecture and some strategies for involving students actively in the lecture/learning process.Brookfield (1900) suggests five reasons for choosing to lecture: (1) to establish the broad outlines of a body of material, (2) to set guidelines for independent study, (3) to model intellectual attributes for students, (40) to encourage learner's interest in a topic, (5) to set the moral culture for discussions. McKeachie's review of the research on lecturing shows that for simply conveying knowledge, lecture is as efficient as any other approach. But for other kinds of learning goals, such as long-term retention of material, problem solving, critical thinking, and motivation for lifelong learning, discussion type methods are more effective (McKeachie et al., 1986). To help students learn to learn, we need to decrease emphasis on lecture as a teaching strategy, and we need to modify how we use lectures.
A successful lecturer will model in the classroom the kind of energy, enthusiasm, and passion for learning she hopes to engender in students. The lecturer will, of course, be knowledgeable and well prepared. The lecture and the course will be well organized. The lecturer should also be willing to be revealed as human, through humor, personal references, an openness to new ideas. In lecturing, the instructor's role is to model the attitudes and learning attributes desired for students in the course. Thus, for example, the lecturer will raise questions and point out the role of questioning in learning to learn, or she will outline relationships between concepts to show students how knowledge can be organized, or she will bring in examples to connect the lecture topic to business problems or news events. The successful lecturer will be as interested in students as in the subject, aware of student interest and questions and willing to adjust the lecture to meet student needs.
It is possible to introduce learning experiences that lead students to develop questioning and organizing skills into even a very large lecture course. Research shows that students can concentrate on a lecture for fifteen or twenty minutes and then attention begins to wander. A lecturer might plan for this by stopping after twenty minutes to engage students in some kind of activity, as individuals, in pairs or small groups, or as a whole class. There are many ways to do this; we will mention only a few here. (See Frederick, 1986 for additional ideas.)
- The professor might pause to let students catch up with their notes and compare notes with a neighbor. Students could then raise questions about points of confusion which the professor could clear up before going on with the lecture.
- Students could divide into pairs or triads to discuss a problem or question arising from the lecture. After 8-10 minutes some groups might report, with others agreeing or disagreeing by show of hands. Them the professor could bring closure by summarizing the points raised or discussing the solutions proposed.
- At the beginning, middle, or end of a lecture, students could be asked to write a brief (one sentence? one page?) question about the topic, or summary statement of the lecture's main point, or example of the theory under discussion, or answer to a question about the lecture. These papers need not be graded, or even signed, but reading them will give the lecturer insight into the students' needs and some material to address in future classes.