Brittany Morgan
Soc. St. 316
Lecture or No Lecture
Initially I was straddled somewhere between lecture and no lecture. While I didn't change much,
I am slightly further away from the lecture than before. There were so many good points in both "The
Lecture is Dead! Long Live the Lecture" and "Why Lectures Are Dead (Or Soon Will Be)"; "Don't Give Up
On Lectures" appeared to be too biased to me and really rubbed me the wrong way.
Initially I believed much like Bates when he determined "the 50 minute lecture needs to be well
organized, with frequent opportunities for student questions and discussion" from Bligh's research. I
definitely stand by that statement but I feel I learned a lot more from Bates and Bligh. I am now more
aware of the history of the lecture and the small transformation it's made over the years. And while
there definitely was a time for it, it cannot be all we use today. This did not seem to be Abigail
Walthausen's point of view. She used Burgan's idea that being clueless during a group discussion is
worse than not understanding a lecture in terms of the student's confidence level and embarrassment. I
could not disagree more. Asking a small group of students to elaborate or explain their ideas within the
discussion sounds much nicer than interrupting a lecture in front of the entire class to ask the professor
to explain a term or re-explain a concept. If a student doesn't understand the discussion of his/her
group, it is nothing too serious to worry about. He/she can listen while they explain their ideas to the
class as a whole and remain silent. However, if you don't stop to ask the teacher about what is going on,
you will be clueless for possibly the entire period and likely the majority of the class unless a friend has
good notes or you have time to re-read the assigned text. All in all, it's all embarrassing, but being
clueless in a small group is no worse than being lost in a large class.
Walthausen also declared that TED talks are engaging lectures. While I agree with this
statement, as a teacher or professor, we do not always have the luxury to lecture on subjects we are
passionate about. Often we must incorporate ways to learn: concepts, rules, etc. For example, if I were
an English major and only taught on a higher level, I may be able to only teach books I am passionate
about (the Harry Potter series, The Great Gatsby, Térèse Raquin, etc.). However, I would still need to
make sure students understood how to read at this level, to understand themes, plots, symbolism,
character development, parallelism, etc. and that is not always very intriguing, no matter what a teacher
does.
The lecture is definitely not dead and hopefully will never be in it's entirety. But there is a time,
a place, and a way for the lecture to be beneficial. As stated, it needs to be well organized and include
student discussion and questions. If lectures are longer than twenty or thirty minutes, they ought to
have some type of stimulation. Bates hit on this and suggested that the learner must actively engage
with the material in order for the information to stick. Requiring students to use their smart devices
(phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) as a resource for research could help them be more actively involved in
the teaching process. Many times I have had lecturers that assigned the group the task of finding
information on a topic on their smart device in a given amount of time. We then had a minute or two to
organize our thoughts and present our topic to the class to learn. This is something the teacher could
have easily and more quickly taught us, however, she kept us engaged and made us more
knowledgeable in one of the areas assigned. If a lecture is used with other resources or materials,
students are much more likely to become engaged and retain the information they learned.
Brittany Morgan
Soc. St. 316
Lecture or No Lecture
Additionally, Bates used McKeachie and Svinicki's key reasons for lecturing, which all seemed
reasonable: combining multiples sources into one, providing up-to-date information, adapting the
information to meet the audiences' interests, and modeling how to approach a topic or problem.
Knowing when to use lecture, how to use lecture, when to use a break, how to give a break, and how to
integrate a number of resources can revive lecture while still educating students.
Resources Used:
"Why Lectures are Dead (or Soon Will Be) by Tony Bates
"The Lecture is Dead! Long Live the Lecture!" by Kelly Walsh
"Don't Give Up on the Lecture" by Abigail Walthausen