Teaching methods

It is a common belief that if one changes the way one teaches, it equates to watering down the course. Many college professors will say they have too much material to cover to not do traditional lectures. Many secondary school teachers will say the same thing. This, however, is a logical fallacy, a mistake in critical thinking.

What you teach and how you teach it are two very different discussions and should never under any circumstances be done at the same time, because if you do, you quickly run into huge misunderstandings, confusion, and a general failure of education. The obvious thing to do is to decide what the students should be learning first, come up with clear ideas of what they should be getting out of the class. This will in turn inform exactly what material should be covered, what details to bring up, that will best accomplish those goals. If you are trying to teach someone about computers, you really don't need to discuss the physics of electricity. While using a computer does require electricity, it will not help a person operate a computer. Once you have that, then and only then should you really decide the best way to teach the material.

Unfortunately, most people start off with the idea that they need to prepare a lecture on a given topic. Then they decide all the interesting facts they want to include. If the students are lucky, the professor will then pare it down to what they can actually say in class. this is more of a problem than they realize.

The problem here is two-fold. One, practically every other teaching method takes more time than traditional lecture. On the plus side, practically every other teaching method works better. Lectures are about the most inefficient way to teach ever invented. But it is also the easiest, thus the most common. What few lecturers seem to appreciate is that their lectures are pointless if the students aren't learning. The lecture is mostly about telling the students what they need to learn, because they are unlikely to actually learn anything listening to the lecture.

The second problem is that many professors have decided that their students are too lazy to read and do outside work and so they have to cover everything in class. While it may be true that most students are lazy and unwilling to work outside of class, it is only because they have been taught that way, that it is acceptable and sufficient to pass. Students are are expected to work hard will do so. Admittedly, if you take a bunch of students who are used to being spoon-fed, most will fail at first. However, if you keep up the requirements, even they will begin to turn around. Given time, most people rise to the expectations.

So, if you have to cover everything in class and lecture is the only way to cover the amount of material fast enough, you will never try anything else. Course, this means that your students are being shortchanged, because they deserve teachers that are interested in teaching. Why don't they get it at most universities? Because for the most part, the professors aren't allowed to. To keep their jobs, they need to bring in grant money. Teaching quality is low down on the list for administrators, who only see the bottom line in terms of money. Teaching doesn't bring the school money, it costs money. Grans on the other hand do bring the school money. So even professors that would like to do better wind up not having the time to spend on improving their teaching.

Ok, that was a bit of a digression, back to the topic at hand. I find it odd that most science classes I've seen work under the above principles, yet most english and poly sci classes I've seen require the students to do a lot of outside reading and are expected to be familiar with the material whether or not it is mentioned in class. Shouldn't science classes expect as much from their students as these courses? Course, most people speak english (at least where I am) and most people have some idea of politics, whereas a lot of people are completely illiterate when it comes to science. Nevertheless, people should be expected to read.

Lectures are unlikely ever to go away completely and I am not proposing that. However, lectures should be more than just one person talking at a group of people. The students should be expected to cover the material outside of class and pointed to resources that will cover the basics. The lectures could then be used to tie major concepts together and put all the information into context, and to answer questions regarding the material. The students can learn the basic memory stuff on their own. Where they need help is the higher level abstract, conceptual training. If lectures were designed this way, they would be more effective training tools as well as allowing more material to be covered.

This would not only create better educated students, but it would actually give the students their money's worth, which is what they aren't usually getting. The students who just want a grade (which is most of them) are shortchanging themselves and the people who helped pay for their education. It is the job of the educators not to let them do so. If the students want to hurt themselves, that is on their heads, but some people want that education and they should not be hampered by the faults of others. This can actually happen if we discuss education in a meaningful way, rather than the typical waste of time trying to lump the material and the teaching method into the same conversation.