What are lectures for?
The Institute of Education’s Jonathan Firth reflects on a major component of university teaching.
Academic lectures have existed for hundreds of years in something close to their present form, and further back still, they trace their roots to prehistoric community storytelling (Jones, 2007). By the time of the Ancient Greeks, oral readings for both information and entertainment was already a familiar format.
The first universities certainly made use of lectures, though they involved direct readings, with the idea of the lecturer contextualising and commenting on the work only later becoming the norm. Nowadays, lectures generally involve much more of a synthesis of material, often including the lecturer’s own research.
New students, when setting out on a new year of academic study, may find themselves unsure about the purpose of this ancient form of teaching. In this post, I’ll consider what lectures aim to do, and how students can best profit from them.
Aims of lectures
So, what are lectures for? An obvious aim is to share key knowledge from the course. In modern times, however, this may seem less central, given that there are so many ways to get this information – books, online sources, lecture slides, practical tasks, and so on.
There are various other potential advantages to a lecture, though. They provide opportunities to provide guidance to a whole community of students at once (assuming that tutorials, in contrast, involve sub-groups). They can contextualise reading, particularly texts that are important but outdated. They prioritise the sharing of expertise from the lecturer; in seminars, by way of contrast, it is often the students doing most of the talking. Finally, the process of writing notes during a lecture can have a learning benefit (Arnold et al., 2017) – a phenomenon known as writing to learn.
Criticisms of lectures
Traditional academic lectures have also been criticised. One major criticism is that they are often rather passive. The student is supposed to sit and listen, to take notes perhaps, but not much else. In contrast to tutorials, labs and other classes, they often do not engage in much ‘active learning’, such as answering questions or solving problems.
However, lectures can be very engaging if delivered well. They provide students a way to hear a lecturer model how they think through complex issues, for example critiquing ideas from reading or modelling problem-solving processes. And they can build in elements of active or interactive learning, for example:
- Asking students to pause for reflection or to predict what comes next
- Multimedia demonstrations, for example using a visualiser
- Student responses, e.g. via websites where they can answer questions or make suggestions
- Interspersing prompt questions, perhaps discussing these with a partner
Overall, while lectures remain ubiquitous, many lecturers have moved away from a focus entirely on speaking (or reading!), though their choice of alternative strategies may depend on the subject matter.
How can students get the most from a lecture?
As a new student, a lecture can seem overwhelming; noting down everything seems impossible, but fail to do so and they may be missing out on key details.
In general, taking down notes and copying are not considered a very effective learning strategy, but writing that prompts deep thinking is (Applebee, 1984). Therefore, it might be advisable for students to reduce the level to which they attempt to directly transcribe a lecture, and instead try to note down the big ideas. At least in some situations, taking notes on a laptop can be less conducive to learning than written note-taking, precisely because the former appears to encourage transcription over the processing of ideas (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014).
Arnold et al. (2017) found that while various forms of writing to learn can be helpful for students, they work best when there is an element of retrieval from memory. This implies that it may be optimal for a student to later use their notes to construct a meaningful overview of the lecture, drawing mainly on memory but also on their notes of details and the overall structure. On a related point, researchers have found that elaboration – where students ask questions about material, make links and provide more explanation – is another factor that makes writing to learn more effective (Glogger et al., 2012).
However, doing these things well takes practice. It’s therefore worthwhile for academics to consider how to develop academic skills including note taking, and to provide some subject-specific guidance across a university course.
Notes and resources
Many thanks to Allan Blake for helpful suggestions on the draft of this post.
Want to find out more? Check out this post for tips on taking notes in lectures, this vlog for guidance on the Cornell note taking system, and this post for more on how learners form new memories.
References
Applebee, A. N. (1984). Writing and reasoning. Review of Educational Research, 54, 577–596.
Arnold, K. M., Umanath, S., Thio, K., Reilly, W. B., McDaniel, M. A., & Marsh, E. J. (2017). Understanding the cognitive processes involved in writing to learn. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 23(2), 115–127.
Glogger, I., Schwonke, R., Holzapfel, L., Nückles, M., & Renkl, A. (2012). Learning strategies assessed by journal writing: Prediction of learning outcomes by quantity, quality, and combinations of learning strategies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 452–468.
Jones, S. E. (2007). Reflections on the lecture: outmoded medium or instrument of inspiration?. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31(4), 397–406.
Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159–1168.
Published 25/09/2024
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