If you haven't sat through a boring lecture at one point in your life, I'm not sure if your human. I remember sitting through a lecture in 11th grade physics. I don't remember what it was on, but I remember thinking "I get it. He's just saying the same thing over and over. Can I just do some practice problems?" I started to doodle on my page, zoning out. Lecturing students is the classic example of education. Whether it is middle school, high school, college or beyond, this is expectation. Students sit in desks or rows, listening to a teacher write notes on a board or walk through a powerpoint. Some days it takes the whole class time, some days it half of class. Now let's not focus on the teacher (at least for right now) and look at the students who are listening, watching and taking notes on this lecture. In a high school physics lesson on forces... Tatianna- She's bored and she understood the equation after the first example. She's bored so she looks at her phone and doodles on her page. Her teacher scolds her for being on her phone. She puts it away and lazily watches the teacher go through more examples. Ana- Her mind races "what does the word 'drag' mean?" she thinks to herself as she scans the notes she just hurriedly wrote down. "Oh gosh... if I don't know what that means... I won't be able to learn". Ana is an ESL student, who is learning English. She continues writing down the notes, not understanding what is writing down. She is writing it down because it's expected. There is no processing. Jim- After the first example problem, Jim is lost. He raises his hand to ask a question and the teacher reviews the problem but Jim still doesn't get it. "Why did the teacher divide?" he thinks to himself. Jim feels confused. The teacher continues and he still doesn't get the math. He shakes his head. The class continues and for the last ten minutes the class gets a homework worksheet. "This is due tomorrow" the teacher says. "It's on the lecture" you can get started now. Tatianna puts in her headphones and begins working. "Wow this is easy", she thinks to herself. Ana slowly begins, trying to make sense of the words on the page. She calls the teacher over to help. Ana leaves class with a better understanding, but is nervous to do the homework tonight. Jim looks at his friend next to him who has begun with no problem. Jim starts looking around him. "Why can't I get started? Man, I suck at physics". Jim doesn't finish his homework for tomorrow. The pattern continues the next day. Tatianna gets it and is bored, Ana needs extra time and support and Jim continues to fall behind. In this brief story I told I painted the picture of a traditional classroom. I do (lecture/notes), we do (practice together), you do (practice by yourself and at home aka homework). The focus of this post is on the lecture. The lecture is dead. It died many, many years ago. It's been proven ineffective for years. Here, here and here. So why do we still do it as educators? I private tutor many students who come with me with a page of notes and a homework sheet. I ask them to start their homework and they go "I don't know what to do". I then ask them what they did in class and they respond "Oh we took notes" or "The teacher talked the whole hour". So, the students GOT the information from the teacher. They wrote it down. The teacher handed them the knowledge but they did not let them process it. They did not apply it. I also would guess that half of my students zoned out during the lecture and just copied things down they say on the board. Now let's get real here. We teach the iGen generation. Most of these students could have Googled this information and go their notes in five minutes. They can also Google your homework sheet and get all the answers. Getting information is their LIFE. It is embedded in them. They were born into the technology/information age. For far too long we have ignored this, prevented it and banned in. We ban phones in schools, don't teach students how to harness the information they have in the palms in their hands. Instead, we tell them to put away their phones and sit for an hour in chairs and copy down our notes. We must change how our students acquire the knowledge for our courses. We are doing our children a disservice by standing at the front of our rooms and telling our children to write down things. We are doing our children a disservice by standing between them and knowledge. So why do we keep lecturing? We are afraid to change the acquisition of knowledge so it is focused on the students and not us. What are some alternatives? Here are a few of my examples: Flipped Learning (see a previous blog post about it!): Instead of lecturing in class and homework at home the learning is flipped. Students watch and take notes short recorded lectures by the teachers and then teachers and students discuss the lesson in class and work on the "homework" portion- labs, practice problems, projects, etc. You get more time with your students and the ability to go through material faster. Choice Based Learning (blog post to come!): Students choose HOW they learn. For instance on content days my students choose to attend either a short (10 minute or less) mini lecture with me, video lessons or a tutorial (usually more reading based). This way students of all learning styles can get the content in a way they enjoy. Learning Through Exploration: Take a pick from the list- Project Based Learning, Brain-Based Learning, Inquiry-Based Learning, etc. Inquiry Based learning is a centerpiece of NGSS. Teachers do not give students the equation, concept or model- students work on labs and research to find it out for themselves. So I said it loud and clear: the lecture is dead. We already know it so let's change it. It is time as educators to push ourselves to get out of the old mold of teaching and into the way of teaching that our students need. See this article published on Rubicon!
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