Lecture Me - Sunday NYT Op-ed

[SarahW]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/lecture-me-really.html?_r=1

 

I found this interesting. And, for the record, I agree. The most I ever learned in a college class was from lectures built as arguments. They were thrilling and engaging, too. Sitting around talking to other imbeciles (my classmates and, at the time, myself, lol) about "So....what do you think Descartes was saying here??" was a mind numbing waste of time.

 

Though I think the first quote from JHN is being misapplied. I think he was talking about active listening, and also the lived application of knowledge after its acquisition. Not "hands on" learning.

 

 

[Black-eyed Suzan]

Interesting! The part about note taking is especially true for me. I still take notes as I listen - even if I never refer to them again, the act of writing helps me remember what I've heard. My husband used to make fun of me when I scribbled notes on the church program only to recycle them as soon as I got home. Now, after 16 years of marriage, he's used to it.  :laugh:

 

I think lecturing is a very efficient way of communicating information. Like you alluded to, discovery methods like group discussion just take too long and therefore don't accomplish much. But I'm biased because I find it easy to assimilate knowledge that way. People with different learning styles might be at a disadvantage during lectures.

 

As a side note, this makes me wonder how I might teach the art of listening/taking notes to my kids. Off to think about that. :)

[mom2att]

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing! I read several of the comments as well. Those were also worth reading--lots of smart people posting :-)

[The Girls' Mom]

I love a good lecture, and learn a lot that way.  However, it completely depends on the professor as to whether or not it is effective.  My Econ professor is GREAT at giving lectures.  She is engaging, loves her material, is very knowledgeable, and asks just enough questions of the class to keep you listening.  My Biology professor, however, is like that droning teacher on Ferris Bueller.  He reads from a power point, often has to correct himself, and just doesn't come across very well.  I've learned very little from his class lectures and have to rely almost entirely on the textbook to pass the exams.  

What is sad? Outside of college, I LOVE learning about biology, and find economics kind of dull.  

[Guest]

This is why I dropped out of college. If the professor deviated at all from what I could read in the textbook, I was a goner.

[Reefgazer]

I agree with you wholeheartedly - I am an active and engaged listener, and I learn best through lectures. Hands on is over rated, at least in introductory/non advanced courses. There is value to hands on in science courses, but even there, hands on without the lecture component would have been useles for me. I think a bigger problem and one that needs attention is passive learning, of any type.

[Guest]

The article is saying in part that the humanities absolutely do not need to be approached the same way sciences are approached. I could not agree more! There is a weird push to smoosh everything together and it's really not doing anyone any favors.

 

I understand SOME people really struggle to learn in an audio environment (I am one of them!) but that's a whole other ball of wax.

[Corraleno]

As a side note, this makes me wonder how I might teach the art of listening/taking notes to my kids. Off to think about that. :)

 

The Great Courses / Teaching Company lectures are awesome for this. My son not only learned how to take good notes from watching hundreds of GC/TC lectures, it's also how he learned to write. As the article states, a good lecture "is not a recitation of facts, but the building of an argument." He learned what a good academic argument looks like, how it's structured, how it's framed and supported, by watching master teachers present their arguments. That's 90% of academic writing right there; format and mechanics are easy to teach, but if the student doesn't know what a good, strong, well-supported argument looks like, it doesn't much matter whether the margins are correct or the citations are in MLA format.

[kiwik]

I mostly preferred lectures providing i coukd hear and understand the lecturer which wasn't always the case in my classes. I only ever studied sciences though.

[Mergath]

When I was in college, I learned so much more from lectures than I did from any hands-on, group discussions. For example, I had two American Lit professors, one who gave mostly lectures and one who put us into small groups and had us discuss the reading. I still remember a ton from the first professor's class (like synechdoche!) and almost nothing from the second professor's classes (except how much I will cry if I ever have to read The Awakening again). 

 

The group discussions in the second prof's class were so pointless. He never taught us any new material, so our little groups were just rehashing the plot points over and over without having any deeper knowledge of the text. If he had given a lecture and then put us into groups, it would have been a much more productive experience. Stressed out first-year English students don't often have brilliant and original insights into classic literature. Though I did get to know the other students fairly well, so had I been in college strictly for the networking, it would have been extremely helpful.

[Kalmia]

Listening to passionate, learned people speak has always been my favorite way to learn. I have cried on two occasions when due to circumstances, I was unable to attend lectures (Douglas Tallamy and Vandana Shiva). I have never cried because I had to miss a group project or discussion. Never. Group projects, discovery activities, they can be a fun break, but they are not inspiring, not efficient, and generally frustrating if they involve depending on other people. However, I have noticed that with Pearson et al. providing handy dandy powerpoint slides to professors, lectures have devolved into reading the slides which just reiterate the text. Artful lectures may actually be becoming rare and so the critics aren't exposed to good lectures and this just confirms their bias against lectures as they haven't actually heard any good ones. I do love the mention of the habit of attention. That is clearly being lost, also, the mention of modeling a well structured argument. Fantastic. Especially since the critic's argument against the lecture seems to rely heavily on loaded words and not on any substantive argument.