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| Photo by Alexandre Pellaes on Unsplash |
Even if we know that lecturing is not a very effective way of teaching, it is so hard to stop doing it. I find myself often in the absurd position of lecturing about why we need to move away from lecturing and every time I fall into the trap I promise to be better next time. My excuse is that people ask me to lecture so that's what I do. The problem is that I do enjoy it and I think I do it quite well and that makes it even harder to kick the habit. Sometimes I think I have made the session open to discussion and tried to stimulate interaction, but afterwards I realise in shame that it was 90% monologue, again. Of course I also run workshops and use lots of tools and methods to increase interaction but I keep falling back into traditional formats. How to escape from an irresistible force?
When educators get together in conferences and seminars we tend to give lectures on research work or methodology with pretty traditional questions-and-answers sessions. I once attended a conference on innovative pedagogy that consisted of many long and rather dull lectures from experts in the field. There are exceptions, but we seem to have great difficulty escaping the gravitational pull of tradition. It's what people expect teachers to do, especially at university, and it's so easy to oblige. A well-structured and lively lecture can be inspiring but the majority fall short. We try to throw in a few polls or buzz group discussions but in the end it's still a lecture.
Do you have this problem or have you managed to do a lecture detox? When you get an invitation to give a lecture at a big conference what do you say?
Perhaps we should not forget the benefits of the lecture to the lecturer: they are easy to make; they are familiar; and they let the lecturer perform. In my case, any other format take a lot more work, and I only rarely get it right the first time. How many people are invited twice to give a plenary address at a big conference? If there would be a good and easy alternative, wouldn't people already use it. (Do not get me wrong: I am looking for an alternative, but I have not yet found one that is suitable for conferences.)
ReplyDeleteMoreover, lockdown has shown me that students like lectures, and their argument is invariably: "if someone talks about the material, it comes to life".
I agree though I think students like lectures because that's what they expect and they get the information they want in a handy package that doesn't make them work so hard.We could learn more if we had to work things out together rather than getting spoon-fed. But that's my point - we keep returning to the easy format.
ReplyDeleteIn my view, the reception of knowledge, either through reading or listening, is a fundamental ( but not the only) part of learning. Thus, lectures are fine as long as they are just one element of a pedagogy that has active learning at its core.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree. One of many methods to be used when necessary.
DeleteI feel that my role as presenter is to provoke a question, a feeling, or some kind of response. I don't like to speak for more than five minutes before hearing the voice of someone else in the room. Even if I am making a point by telling a story, I can tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and and an end in less than five minutes.
ReplyDeleteI am also not afraid of silence. If I say something that people in the room have never heard before, I am OK with giving them a moment or two to process what they've just heard. It is less important for me to get through everything I have prepared to talk about than it is for the people in the room to have a slightly better understanding of the only idea they were going to remember from that presentation anyway.
Good point, we are so afraid of silence, especially in online meetings. People can't react immediately and need several minutes to formulate a response.
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