The Future of the Lecture

[Sheree]

I am going to embark on a PhD shortly. My topic will be "The Future of
the Lecture as a Method of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education"

It seems that our lecture theatres are becoming more empty as the years
go by. With the arrival of lecture streaming and placing lecture notes
on the web, students don't seem to see the need to turn up. Should we
not bother with weekly lectures and just put up readings and notes for
students on the web and concentrate our efforts on tutorials? Should
we just run occasional lectures with guest speakers?

What are your thoughts?

[rgrozdanic]

hi sheree - welcome to TALO  :-)

i haven't thought this through, but my immediate reaction is that a "lecture" per se is still a lecture whether it's face to face or streamed by video or put on CD and sent to someone 3 months later - in my mind the key factor is that a lecture as a delivery method involves an expert talking (sound and/or sight) to a group about a topic for 1 - 3 hours with little or no interaction with the audience.

a bit like a question still being a question whether it's asked over the phone, over a fence or over the intermet whereas at other times the delivery medium really does make a difference or creates a totally new learning strategy.  (like animation, for instance.  in the past anatomy textbooks or engineering books etc could only show pictures of things.  whereas now you can depict a whole system, like the digestive system or a steam engine or whatever using animation and this allows a new kind of delivery and design that pretty much wasn't available until the technologies made it so).  sometimes the technologies can become red herrings unless we clarify when and why the distinctions are important to draw out, analyse, etc.

will think about it a bit more and post again in a few days - what i'm trying to get at here is that for me the technologies almost become immaterial because the underlying learning approach is all (in my opinion - others will disagree, so i'll be interested to hear what this draws out!)

cheers

rose

[Sean FitzGerald]

Hi Sheree,

I agree with Rose insofar as the key factor is interaction or the lack of it.

As a student - if there is no interaction with the lecturer and I can access the material online, then there's no point in me turning up.

I would rather download a video, slide show, powerpoint presentation or screencast of the material and view it when it suits me than endure a boring, soporific lecture.

If the lecturer is really dynamic, inspiring and engaging though, then that would be another story - and this is where I maybe disagree with Rose - because I would be more inclined to attend a lecture of that type than watch the streaming video. Even if there was no interaction, there is something appealing about being in the physical presence of a good speaker. Certain qualities of that experience aren't necessarily conveyed by the electronic media.

It's similar to the difference between attending a music concert and watching a video of the concert. It's just not the same as being there (even though the recording may provide better sound quality).

So maybe it's not that lectures are dead - just that boring lectures are dead!

I assume you are familiar with the recent articles on the future on the lecture. The model suggested in those where the lecturer provides material online for previewing then uses the lecture time to answer questions and facilitate discussions seems a logical one to me - a better use of face-to-face time.

No matter what happens, I think the way that uni courses are delivered is definitely going to change.

Sean

-- 

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
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I had better come clean now and say that I do not believe
that either art or beauty is optional in a sane society.       
-- Jeanette Winterson 

[rgrozdanic]

no point disagreeing with me sean cos i'm in total agreement with what you said  :-)))   a dynamic speaker in person is always worth making the effort to see. ditto performances et al.

my main point about the lecture thing was to make the comment that when it comes to technology and learning there's a distinction in my mind between existing learning strategies that we attempt to replicate and/or enhance through technology (like lectures etc) and those that represent a completely new kind of learning strategy/design as a result of the technology (as in animations, wikis, moblogs et al). 

from a technology point of view the difference is marginal.  from a pedagogical point of view it's highly significant.

or something like that...

r

[Leigh Blackall]

Victor van Reijswoud from Uganda tried to add a post to this discussion, but had issues, so I'm forwarding his message on on his behalf. Victor authored a very important paper FOSS for Development

Victor van Reijswoud

<vic...@eacoss.org> to me

More options

9:55 pm (11 hours ago)

hello Leigh,

I know I am not an active member of the group, but with this discussion
I feel that I need to add a word. I do not seem to have access to the
group and have no  acces to internet at the moment. Cn you add the
message for me?

Thanks,

Victor


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Being a lecturer myself I believe that there will still be need to have
face-to-face contact between student and lecturer. However we need to
distinguish between plain information exchange and skills development. I
think the last needs face-to-face interaction. Then, we see that skills
development is increasingly little valued in most courses at
universities around the world.

When you start the research you may also take a look at the African
Virtual University project that has run (and recently started up again)
in several African countries/universities. The lack of individual
contact, misunderstanding of context, the little focus on practical work
has made this initiative a debacle.

Victor

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skype - leigh_blackall
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[Jock]

I agree with Sean re the dynamism of the lecture/lecturer being a
critical factor.

Casting my mind back over far too many years of university attendance I
can only remember 3 lectures that inspired me:
1977, Uni of NSW - Benoit Mandelbrot on Fractal Geometry
1994, Uni of Western Sydney - Stelarc on body/machine interfaces and
overcoming the limitations of flesh
1995, Sydney Uni - Jacques Derrida on Deconstruction and other things

Does this mean I didn't learn from the countless other lectures?

Perhaps not enough to warrant the time spent in them :)

[Veness, Deborah]

There's more, I believe, than dynamism to the secret of a good lecture. We will be engaged if we are listening to someone who is well-prepared, a good performer, and an acknowledged authority. We will remember for some time the speakers who add the dimension of provocation and lead us to deep thought and change. We will be enthralled by those who have all these qualities and are also Names recognised by others (the boast factor: "I heard X speak").

Many lecturers don't even meet the first level of criteria, and even the best of those may never meet the third level.

For the least able lecturers, there are better ways of getting the information across, and that's where technology and inspired teaching comes it. You don't have to be a good lecturer to be a good teacher, if only you have an expanded tool bag that includes good activity design, clever assessment design, a clear vision of learning outcomes -- and are prepared to forego the limelight for student-centred learning practices.

IMO

Deborah

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[Leigh Blackall]

Interesting you noted performance as a certain quality, and Sean's analogy of buying a music CD as apposed to watching it live. Perhaps you'll find this old paper of interest:

Teaching as performance in the electronic classroom

By Doug Brent

One of the most useful concepts for understanding modern life is "residual orality." Ong pointed out that before the printing press stablized the effects of literacy, many aspects of society remained oral. Manuscripts were often read aloud, even by people reading them in private. Oral debates were a major way of producing knowledge. Witnesses were more important than documents. Now the printing press has made residual orality a much smaller part of everyday life. However, in many areas of life, oral performance has been remarkably resistant to being "textualized": that is, taken over by written or electronic texts. Teaching is one of these areas.

...I want only to use this phenomenal persistence of the performative, after 500 years of technologies that could in principle have replaced it with textualization, as a reason to reflect carefully on what now seems to be happening to notions of intellectual property as online technologies promise increasing textualization of teaching.

On 3/8/06, Veness, Deborah <Deborah...@canberra.edu.au > wrote:

There's more, I believe, than dynamism to the secret of a good lecture.  We will be engaged if we are listening to someone who is well-prepared, a good performer, and an acknowledged authority.  We will remember for some time the speakers who add the dimension of provocation and lead us to deep thought and change.  We will be enthralled by those who have all these qualities and are also Names recognised by others (the boast factor: "I heard X speak").

Many lecturers don't even meet the first level of criteria, and even the best of those may never meet the third level.

For the least able lecturers, there are better ways of getting the information across, and that's where technology and inspired teaching comes it.  You don't have to be a good lecturer to be a good teacher, if only you have an expanded tool bag that includes good activity design, clever assessment design, a clear vision of learning outcomes -- and are prepared to forego the limelight for student-centred learning practices.

IMO

Deborah






----- Original Message -----
From: Jock <jock....@tafe.nsw.edu.au>
Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2006 10:22 am
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: The Future of the Lecture

>
> I agree with Sean re the dynamism of the lecture/lecturer being a
> critical factor.
>
> Casting my mind back over far too many years of university
> attendance I
> can only remember 3 lectures that inspired me:
> 1977, Uni of NSW - Benoit Mandelbrot on Fractal Geometry
> 1994, Uni of Western Sydney - Stelarc on body/machine interfaces and
> overcoming the limitations of flesh
> 1995, Sydney Uni - Jacques Derrida on Deconstruction and other things
>
> Does this mean I didn't learn from the countless other lectures?
>
> Perhaps not enough to warrant the time spent in them :)

[Jock]

In the same way perhaps you don't need to be a good teacher to be a
good lecturer?

I agree that my point about the lectures that stand out for me is
perhaps more to do with their entertainment value (which includes the
"I was there, when ..." factor), than their educational value.
However, having said this, in each cited case I was engaged and
provoked into furthering my own learning.

Perhaps it's time academics stopped giving lectures and let performers
do it instead? ... alternatively academics could team up with
performers for some professional development.

[Michael Nelson]

Certainly seems like we're finally seeing the death-throws of the "normal" lecture (not the one-off exciting lectures by guest speakers).

But even if we consider a dull 1hr lecture by your average uni professor to 300 students. Would more people be exposed to ideas, possibly challenged to think further themselves, by having a dull weekly 1hr lecture that they can choose to attend, or by being provided with a dull 1hr MP3 file that they can choose to download?

Given these two options, my feeling is that the lecture is still a social event that has more pull for _lots_ of learners... and it does offer the chance to say: "hangon, I don't quite understand that... can you explain that again?". So I'm not certain that dull live lectures should be replaced by dull mp3 versions... it may be at the expense of learning.

I reckon most people on this list would believe that we'd learn more by spending an hour interacting with the topic ourselves perhaps with being provided with only some excellent questions from an expert to engage us - I certainly believe this! But will this suit most learners now?

It would be unreal to run a pilot program at multiple unis where students are given the option of the "lecture method", and something completely different (but very well thought out!)... my feeling is it would be easy to show that the second group can learn lots more, but that they won't necessarily be as good at "passing the test" :(

On 3/8/06, Jock <jock....@tafe.nsw.edu.au> wrote:

I agree with Sean re the dynamism of the lecture/lecturer being a
critical factor.

Casting my mind back over far too many years of university attendance I
can only remember 3 lectures that inspired me:
1977, Uni of NSW - Benoit Mandelbrot on Fractal Geometry
1994, Uni of Western Sydney - Stelarc on body/machine interfaces and
overcoming the limitations of flesh
1995, Sydney Uni - Jacques Derrida on Deconstruction and other things

--
Michael Nelson
http://liveandletlearn.net/

[Veness, Deborah]

I agree that some lecturers would benefit from some help with their presentation skills, but I don't think we can hire performers to give academic lectures. For me, the need for speaker authority would prevent that. Rather, I would like to see a world where it is understood that there are different, equally valid ways of engaging students, and that each university academic is better at some than others. As part of that vision, I would like to see universities encourage their academics to deliver programs in ways that make best use of their abilities (while at the same time taking into consideration the needs and preferences of students, of course) -- and that raises all kinds of discussion topics about workloads and the validity and acceptability of different delivery methods and strategies.

We should also remember that a lecture is an ephemeral thing, and that increasingly students are time-poor and less able to attend f2f sessions just because they are there. Institutions need to be thinking very carefully about providing alternative access to the more fleeting of the experiences provided.

Deborah

[Jock]

... and here was me thinking that the academic world you describe
already existed! Perhaps, as my partner says, I live too much in a
virtual world! One where diversity, use of disparate skill-sets and
personal preference is increasingly catered to ;)

[Leigh Blackall]

Now there's a great idea! The "let performers do it instead" bit is a touch misleading, do you know of any performers waiting to do this? Maybe we should do a real TV series on a couple of faculties! Pretty soon Big Brother would look like chicken feed.

On 3/8/06, Jock <jock....@tafe.nsw.edu.au> wrote:

In the same way perhaps you don't need to be a good teacher to be a
good lecturer?

I agree that my point about the lectures that stand out for me is
perhaps more to do with their entertainment value (which includes the
"I was there, when ..." factor), than their educational value.
However, having said this, in each cited case I was engaged and
provoked into furthering my own learning.

Perhaps it's time academics stopped giving lectures and let performers

[James Neill - Wilderdom]

Welcome to TALO Sheree & Deb,

Great topic. I'm of the "nothing is either good or bad, X only makes
it so" view.

e.g., I often refer back to Dewey's "Experience & Education" (1927) and
this is pretty much his position when discussing traditional vs.
progressive education. (Here's a 500 word summary of the Dewey's
classic book -
http://www.wilderdom.com/experiential/SummaryJohnDeweyExperienceEducation.html).
The traditional classroom and the lecture is not inherently bad, but
it is often overused.

The lecture exists, like LMSs, for the convenience of the educational
institution to disseminate information. It is rarely designed
wholeheartedly with the student in mind.

I'm gradually in the process of getting my lectures digitally recorded,
with the idea that I can then atomise the content, re-edit/mesh the
better parts over the years, and integrate these multimedia grabs with
good old publically accessible low bandwith text online . I'm working
on the assumption that this is likely to eventually produce a better
"performance" for a wider audiance than any single lecture given on a
specific day at a specific insitutation. In this way, also, when I
slip under a bus, that needn't be the end of shared learning
experiences.

As an experiential educator, I've always been uncomfortable with
learning formats which are unnecessarily reliant on a so-called
'expert'. I much prefer being a facilitator who helps students access
ideas and construct knowledge.

I like the idea of an cross-instituational experimental study - anyone
interested?

Sincerely,
James

[Sheree Henley]

Thanks for the welcome James. It has been interesting to hear everyone's
view. How do you envisage this cross-institutional experiemental study
might work?

Sheree

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of James Neill -
Wilderdom
Sent: Wednesday, 8 March 2006 11:42 AM
To: Teach and Learn Online
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: The Future of the Lecture

[James Neill - Wilderdom]

Sheree,

Off the top of my head, perhaps something like:

- Put a call out to all academic staff at each of the 40 Australian
universities
- Invite applications for course convenors to participate in an experimental
study. Courses chosen for the study would need to have a matching course in
a similar insitution.
- The attraction would be that course convenors in the experimental study
would get to participate in top-notch instructional design support for
innovative redesign of lecture materials. The control group course
convenors would get to participate after the study's completion.
- Almost any kind of quantitative and/or qualitative data could be gathered
depending on the specific research questions and researcher orientations.

Thoughts?

J

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Sheree Henley
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 12:07 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: The Future of the Lecture

[James Neill - Wilderdom]

whilst i'm not a big fan of binary perspectives on teaching/research (to me
it is an artificial division), thought you might appreciate this usurption

"Faculty members emerge from the library or laboratory and heave a sigh of
relief: "Thank goodness I've finished all my research for this year! Now I
can get on with my real work!" Rushing back to the classroom, they throw
themselves with relish into the job they have trained to do through years of
graduate study, the labor for which they are recognized and rewarded by
their peers and their institutions: the "real work" of teaching."

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Folks:

The posting below is an interesting take on how things would look if the
roles of university teaching and research were reversed. It is by Helen
Sword, Centre for Professional Development University of Auckland, New
Zealand. (h.s...@auckland.ac.nz) First published in Educational
Developments 6.2 (May 2005). Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis

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UP NEXT: New Multi-disciplinary College Curriculum about Wal-Mart

Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning

----------------------------------- 356 words
----------------------------------

TEACHING AND RESEARCH: THE TABLES TURNED

Imagine, if you can, an academic universe in which the roles of teaching and
research have been suddenly and magically reversed.

Faculty members emerge from the library or laboratory and heave a sigh of
relief: "Thank goodness I've finished all my research for this year! Now I
can get on with my real work!" Rushing back to the classroom, they throw
themselves with relish into the job they have trained to do through years of
graduate study, the labor for which they are recognized and rewarded by
their peers and their
institutions: the "real work" of teaching.

Committed research scholars, meanwhile, profess frustration at the
inequities of the system, but their complaints fall on deaf ears.
Indeed, their excessive attention to research is secretly regarded by their
peers as a sign of intellectual deficiency. "If so-and-so were a truly
talented teacher," colleagues mutter to one another at cocktail parties,
"s/he wouldn't waste so much time and energy on research." Newly hired
faculty who want to pursue cutting-edge research methodologies are actively
discouraged by their department Chairs, who urge them to focus on their
teaching instead: "You have to think about your career, you know!"

When asked by administrators and promotion committees to develop measures
for demonstrating research competence, faculty rise up in anger. "How can
anyone really measure or evaluate good research?"
they demand. "Research is a private matter, a matter of personal style."
These same scholars have no qualms, needless to say, about subjecting their
teaching to collegial scrutiny and rigorous peer review. Indeed, they love
to fly off to far-flung conferences where they can engage in lively
disciplinary debates with teaching colleagues from around the world, leaving
behind the drudgery of their research obligations.

Top universities maintain their international stature by offering generous
funding for innovative teachers, with additional support from government and
industry sources. Academic units devoted to the promotion of research
excellence, by contrast, remain consistently underfunded and understaffed.
University administrators do pay a certain amount of lip service to the
importance of supporting stellar researchers; but under their breaths, they
all recite the same
mantra: "This is a teaching university!"

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[Sean FitzGerald]

Good presenters are performers. They try to make their presentations interesting, fun, dynamic, entertaining as well as informative.

Is being a good presenter a pre-requisite for getting a job as a lecturer in the university, or is the only requirement a knowledge of the subject? Maybe lecturers need to be taught good presentation skills.

If students are leaving the boring lectures in droves this may be an incentive for lecturers to become more engaging, or even for institutions to insist that their lecturers can present well.

Sean

-- 

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Email: se...@tig.com.au
Website: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/
Blog: http://elgg.net/seanfitz/weblog/

Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.
-- Alvin Toffler

[Sean FitzGerald]

Okay, there's something weird going on here - this email was sent at 11.03am and I just received it at 3.45pm. I didn't even receive Deborah's email. No wonder I'm finding this conversation a bit stilted.

Is it just me or is Google Groups?

Sean

-- 

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Email: se...@tig.com.au
Website: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/
Blog: http://elgg.net/seanfitz/weblog/

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you
will help them become what they are capable of becoming.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

[James Neill - Wilderdom]

Sean,

 

I am having problems with intermittent receipt of GG email using any wilderdom.com email addresses and have been relying on the GG web interface over the past week.  I got a personal reply from Google Help (first time ever) indicating that it seemed my domain was blocking google group mail (see below).  I'm not sure.  The email says the domain is RBL listed, but I can't find it RBL listed anywhere.

 

You can go into the GG web interface for a group, click on your membership details and see the list of non-delivered mail..  In there I found 550 non-delivered status email messages and have fwded a sample on to my domain host, but no reply yet. 

 

Meantime, I have subscribed to GG lists using wild...@gmail.com and seem to be getting all GG mail, though not 100% sure.

 

James

 

 

Hi James,

Thank you for your note. We've checked your Google Groups subscriptions associated with the email address ja...@wilderdom.com and it appears that your email service provider is blocking email from Google Groups. Please contact your email domain provider for assistance with troubleshooting this problem. They may find it helpful if you provide them with the following error message we saw when investigating your subscriptions:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

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Original Message Follows:

------------------------

From: ja...@wilderdom.com

Subject: Not receiving email

Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 05:54:13 -0000

2 days ago I stopped receiving emails from GG groups. I am still receiving other mail normally. Occasionally I have received a GG email during this period.

I have checked my subscription settings (ja...@wilderdom.com), subscribed using a different email address on the same domain name (li...@wilderdom.com), and have set up a test group. Basically no emails received, but a sporadic one or two get through. I have checked on webmail, there are no emails. I have checked the bounces (I own/manage most of the lists I'm on), still no result.

However, if I subscribe using an email address from another domain, it works (james...@canberra.edu.au).

I own my the domain name (wilderdom.com), so am wondering whether its being filtered or blocked?

Appreciate any help,

Sincerely,

James Neill

 

IssueType: Bug

Language: en

GroupsLocale: en

 

 

[alexanderhayes]

Greetings Sheree.

I have to concurr with Jock. The number of lectures ( as opposed to
lecturers ) that were inspiring, engaging, motivating and thought
provoking could for me be summarised as;

1. Nigel Helyer - remote audio sonic systems meet the human/body
interface as part of his Wednesday lunch sessions as he called them.
Damned terrific - one of the first lecturers who demanded his own time
schedule and held his lectures 1/2 at lunch time in the courtyard and
the other half buried in a blackened room ...just the flickering of a
global connect to fractal time shift portals - one of the first true
projector to net meets I'd encountered at that stage [
http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/web/biogs/P000087b.htm ]

2. Victoria Vesna - cellular transactions as part of a suite of data
mining mobile ecospheres for creative enterprise as part of the BEAP
fest. in Perth Western Australia
[http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/projects/2002.php] I recall Sony playstations
mashed with nanotechnology.

3. Stellarc- cyberbodies, third-arm performance and internal body
sculpture at Curtin University [http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/]

4. Carol Hogan - the engaging biography, co-operative learning and new
learning enterprises lectures at Edith Cowan University 1993-1994
[http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf1998/hogan-ca.html ]

5. Elisa Giacardi - envisioning connectivism - Transcultural Vision
and Epistemological Shift: From Aesthetics to High-Tech Society
[http://www2.vivaria.net/~eg/] 2000 - online

These people I "picture".

Their passion for connecting others to learning, challenging the status
quo and most of all their amazing skills at punching through phreeky
content at the rate of knots breaking for cigarettes and strong coffee
made them the lecturers I want to sit through hour after hour.

Lecture theatres are becoming empty shells cause they were nothing more
than that in the first place. The edifice of architecture will remain
and the conversations and ghostly whispers of the past have passed
through our souls and remain in the sane membrane.

In my opinion, occasioning a lecture may be pragmatic and expediant.
Guest speakers are bound to fail as their connections will not fit the
plug holes of the students of the future. PHD aside - The Future of the
Lecture as a Method of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education is
evidenced by the shift in learners style of the present.

Regards,

Alex Hayes

[James Neill - Wilderdom]

true story - i used to sit towards the front and eyeball the lecturer -
and went to sleep if it was boring - after 2 hours of precious sleep
one day i went up to the lecturer and said it was the best lecture i'd
ever attended

if we empower student to give more immediate and honest feedback,
boring lectures wouldn't be tolerated

[Sean FitzGerald]

James Neill - Wilderdom wrote:
> if we empower student to give more immediate and honest feedback,
> boring lectures wouldn't be tolerated
>

That's a big "if". Unless it's dramatically changed since my day, and
critics of the school system suggest that it hasn't in any substantial
way, the school system conditions students to blindly follow the
supposed "authority" of the teacher, and any dissent or dissatisfaction
is simply not tolerated, usually interpreted as a sign of disrespect.

So there's an interesting starting point for your thesis Sheree - maybe
the problem goes back to how students are conditioned before they reach
university.

How did it get to a point where so many students find so many of their
lectures boring? Why did they put up with it? Why did they not complain
in droves and get the lecturer to shape up or ship out? Why did they
think that their only options were to put up with it or change subjects?

Sean

--

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Email: se...@tig.com.au
Website: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/
Blog: http://elgg.net/seanfitz/weblog/

It is not the strongest of the species that
survive, nor the most intelligent, but the
one most responsive to change.
-- Charles Darwin

[James Neill - Wilderdom]

-----

i often advise students to be wary of choosing subjects because they
like the subject, but to choose subjects based on the teachers they
want to engage with

there was a "little green book" produced by students at the uni i went
to - with colorful
student-perspective descriptions of each course - no holds barred &
much more useful than official course descriptions

each insitution could have an student-driven online group where they
share and record their own impressions of courses/teachers

------

many of my colleagues are afraid of sharing electronic materials
because they fear people will not turn up to their lecture - it is a
genuine fear

i take the opposite view - if i share all my material then attendence
at a lecture is a direct measure of the perceived value-add for the
in-person performance

-----

[Sean FitzGerald]

James Neill - Wilderdom wrote:

> each insitution could have an student-driven online group where they
> share and record their own impressions of courses/teachers

There are already many online initiatives like this such as:

http://www.ratemyteachers.com/
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/

Nothing local (Australian) as far as I know.

Sean

--

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Email: se...@tig.com.au
Website: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/
Blog: http://elgg.net/seanfitz/weblog/

Maturity is achieved when a person postpones
immediate pleasures for long-term values.
-- Joshua L. Liebman

[Leigh Blackall]

There is Michael's proposed use of tagging for this feedback mechanism... Michael?

[James Neill - Wilderdom]

empower the students; inspire the teachers

From http://creativecommons.org/teach/

Teach
Available for free under a Creative Commons license

In 1999, director Davis Guggenheim and producer Julia Schachter undertook an
ambitious project - to document the experiences of teachers in the Los
Angeles Unified School District. In examining the trials and rewards that
come with educating our children, the filmmakers created two powerful
documentaries: the Peabody Award-winning The First Year; and Teach, a short
film created to attract talented and passionate people to the teaching
profession.

Teach is available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license and is offered
online to the public for free. By using a CC license, Guggenheim and
Schachter are allowing people to legally download and share Teach, so that
its inspirational message can be easily seen by anyone in the world.

Watch Teach
Download it via BitTorrent
Watch it online

[Leigh Blackall]

I watched this the other night, and regretted spending my data limit on it. I guess you have to be a North American, perhaps even a citizen of the United States to appreciate the script of this film. I thought it lacked depth, was utterly contrived, and very simplistic propaganda. But like I said, perhaps I am missing something in my make up. It reminded me of that slop we saw on Australian Sky TV when the unions responded to the IR reforms. Basically I didn't get anything from it, no insight, no reflection, just suspicion on why they felt the need to get so emotionally manipulative with their message/s. One good thing is that it is a reasonably larger budget film getting licensed CC. What a shame its a No Derivatives license, or I'd remix one better!

Sorry James. Just my opinion. I hope others disagree...

[alexanderhayes]

Sean Fitgerald coined;

> Nothing local (Australian) as far as I know.<

Wrong Sean ....wrong. We Aussies have open invitation to Rate My Beer
at http://www.ratebeer.com/

A Wikispace set up to openly crically comment on a course which attains
regular review throughout the course of a course could be the only open
re-course a student may have.

Students should be encouraged to vote, to rate, to genuinely
participate - a Lecturer ( a human breathing one) averting ones eyes
away from the empty classroom filled with one soporific sleep ridden
student chewing on the corners of a weather beaten ipod is beahing with
disregqard and is unabashably behaving in a way thats tantamount to
suicide.

Pedagogy as we know is schizophrenic by virtue. Learning occurs over a
pint, around a campfire, mid-sentence with a politician. Life threatens
to educate everyone in a savage cycle of social de-conditioning.

I paid the Federal Government $22,000 for my social re-conditioning. I
consider that well spent even though I completed my Fine Arts painting
units online and never once saw a "lecturer" face-to-face.Maybe thats
why I find these encoded environments so fulfilling and stimulating -
lacking a certain physical presence , de-humanised and silent.

David Hargreaves once said - " For all the money spent on ICT's in the
last decade................."

Lecturers are humans and thank god for the few that turn up amongst the
myriad of appointments they attend with their supervisors as they
prepare their thesis for critical appraisal from their colleagues who
chase the accolade of letters and numbers after their names.

Echart Tolle once said " life is the space between the first letter of
your name on your tombstone and the last".

As a Lecturer I made every moment count.

Regards,

Alex Hayes

[Leigh Blackall]

Yes, perhaps we should be more sympathetic to lecturers. They are only human, working within a system that is anti human

[Leigh Blackall]

Just read Michael's post on this discussion and was reinspired to comment in it..

I have met many lecturers who loath lecturing, let alone teaching, and prefer their research.

I think then, the future of the lecture should be that it is not a requirement to lecture. I think a lecturer should work on ways of getting guest lecturers in from time to time, to not only expose the new learners to good lectures, but to help their own research and networking. As far as the teaching goes, the lecturer sets up and facilitates tutorials around links and content sourced by student mentors, understudies etc.

So the lecturer becomes a learning community developer as well as researcher. He/she helps new learners to socialise into an appropriate learning community, and works on finding guest lecturers and a wide variety of content to enthuse and inspire learning in that community.

Of course, if the lecturer just so happens to already be a good performer, then nothing need change.

[Emma]

Sheree wrote:
> I am going to embark on a PhD shortly. My topic will be "The Future of

> the Lecture as a Method of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education"
>

> It seems that our lecture theatres are becoming more empty as the years
> go by. With the arrival of lecture streaming and placing lecture notes
> on the web, students don't seem to see the need to turn up. Should we
> not bother with weekly lectures and just put up readings and notes for
> students on the web and concentrate our efforts on tutorials? Should
> we just run occasional lectures with guest speakers?
>
> What are your thoughts?

Hi Sheree,
This is a really interesting idea, and it's something I've thought
about - not in terms of a potential PhD - but in general. I've skim
read the other posts, and it seems an overwhelming view that it's who's
giving the lecture that can really influence students willingness to
turn up.
I, like others remember key lecturer from my undergrad days - David
Bellamy was one, another was a Historical Geographer - a 5.15 lecture
on Durham Pit Villages mayn't seem like a subject that's going to grip
many students, but he was often still going at 6.30 or even 40 with out
students complaining (he knew not to go past 6.45 - or people would
miss dinner!)

However, it's rather different now, I'm not sure about the situation in
Australia, but in the UK, I think there are other factors affecting
student attendance.

1: Part Time jobs. In order to fund themselves through University, many
students have to work. If they've got shifts at the same time as a
class, then many will prioritise the work. Related to that, we also
have more mature students etc., who may have family commitments, which
mean that they have to miss classes to provide care etc.

2: Many students are "strategic learners".They are at University to get
a degree, to enhance their earning potential. If therefore, they feel
that they can get the information they need to pass the exam, without
having to go into the university, they might not - they've got so many
other things to do. That also means that on the whole they aren't doing
the subject because of a life long interest in whatever, rather that
they feel it best improves their career prospects.

There are other aspects of course, though I think that these two can't
be ignored.
I read a couple of days ago, the results of a survey - it was actually
looking at books & other sources of information, but it might be
related:
http://www.openbooksopenminds.co.uk/default.htm

Good luck, & contact me if you want to ask more.

Emma