In an interview published Tuesday in the Globe and Mail, University of Guelph dean, Julia Christensen Hughes, challenged the most common post-secondary method of instruction: the lecture. Though lectures will always be a necessary teaching method, Hughes insisted they must be properly taught and supplemented with more modern teaching tools.
Not only do instructors need to focus more closely on encouraging discussion, but should also have some background in teaching itself, she said.
The problem according to Hughes isn’t only that lectures become boring and long-winded, but that lectures begin to emphasize memorization over their intended purpose of encouraging student engagement with material. An instructor’s primary focus needs to be making the content as accessible as possible.
Hughes’ comments address some of the major issues facing university instructors. Since most information is readily available online, students increasingly use the internet to supplement or even replace the lecture process entirely—especially when doing so allows them to avoid 80 minutes of monotony. Rising class sizes have made facilitating discussion increasingly difficult, and lectures are often reduced to a bare recitation of facts in order to ensure all the material is covered.
The lack of formalized teaching experience imparted to instructors means that teaching often becomes a question of individual responsibility. Most instructors value an engaged learning environment, but some are completely disinterested in the instructive component of academia. Faculty with tenure that don’t value class instruction are often hostile to adjusting their teaching methods, leaving students little recourse.
The key to addressing this issue is increasing student , which will encourage instructors to stay abreast of their student’s needs. In some cases, instructors and students become trapped in a vicious cycle, where an instructor teaching especially dry material in a dry fashion will quickly find student interest flagging, and correspondingly lose interest in attempting to engage students. If instructors make it clear that they are willing to negotiate group learning preferences with their own expectations, each group may be able to reach a model which is satisfying for all.
Lectures will always be a part of post-secondary education. Though satisfying the needs of every student is impossible, universities and educators need to prioritize teaching, and focus on ways to make material accessible to the widest range of students.
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