Lectures and the learning revolution
by Dr. J. David McLeod
Every day we hear more and more that university education is out of step with contemporary needs; that it has not changed in 500 years. Developments in electronic communications, storage and data retrieval are apparently driving a 'learning revolution.' The traditional stand-up lecture is attacked as the way to transmit knowledge and we are told that Canadian university students are at risk of being left behind economically and socially. Canadian universities should rely more upon computers and related technologies to transmit information: e-learning, virtual universities, and distributed learning are the new watchwords. Some commentators hold the view that just a few talented individuals could provide lectures via the web everywhere while local learning centres provide tutorial support.1 This assessment is flawed.
Lectures occupy a focal position in the general public's perception of university education for entirely the wrong reasons. Too many students (and some faculty) see the 'lecture' as the mechanism through which students gain knowledge of a subject. This view sees students as empty vessels to be filled with information that comes from an authoritative source: professors. This understanding of university learning is flawed for two reasons. First, lectures are not usually the mechanism through which the greatest quantity of data is 'downloaded and transmitted' to university students. Second, lectures are not the sole method of communication between university instructors and students. University educations are the result of access to information and teaching; lectures are principally about teaching.
Proponents of the learning revolution and those heralding the demise of traditional university educations have squandered their attacks upon a straw man. Universities are medieval institutions, but today this is reflected only in their organisational structure/governance and the pageantry of a convocation ceremony. Universities use the latest technologies to deliver course content (although not all faculty operate at the same level of comfort with the new tools); the internet became a big thing in universities a long time ago. However, the computer's capacity to provide access to more up-to-date information more quickly and less expensively is not a big deal when it comes to the learning process. Since the foundation of the first universities, the principal tool for the transmission of knowledge has not been the professor's lecture; it has been the written word. In the past this meant books; today it means books and computers; in the future it may mean just computers. Libraries, being the repositories of our printed knowledge, have long been and continue to remain at the metaphorical heart of all universities: universities do not survive without them and they are endeared to faculty and successful students.
Libraries at Canadian universities are less and less about bound volumes and more and more about databases and e-journal access. The growth of electronic sources of information has been very important to smaller universities, such as Brandon University, or new institutions, such as the University of Northern British Columbia, because it means that their students will not be disadvantaged compared to students at institutions with large or long established libraries. By leaps and bounds we are making every university library collection as extensive as the best, but this is not indicative of a revolution in education. In a great many courses the process remains the same. Lectures are accompanied by assigned reading material and students are expected to go beyond these sources in researching for their term papers and projects; it is only the medium by which a lot of information is exchanged that is different.
The point is that a majority of university lectures are not about 'data-downloading and transmission;' that is what books and journals (increasingly available electronically) are for. Lectures are about guiding students through literature, pointing out what is important, bringing the reading assignments to life with references to the latest research, and making the content meaningful to students given their time and place in the world. In short, lectures are about creating understanding out of knowledge and information. This is what university teaching is all about. There are introductory courses where a great deal of content is delivered via lecture, but these are congregated at the first-year level where they provide a bridge between the secondary and postsecondary education systems. The computer's capacity to transmit information should not be equated with the teacher's role in fostering understanding.
Of course, pointing out the spuriousness of arguments that computers are better data transmitters than professors is not to argue that university education is the same as it always was. Modern universities are different from medieval institutions. A significant change in Canada occurred in the second half of the twentieth century when the number of students attending university increased dramatically and classes grew in size. Understanding the knowledge collected in written works in the medieval university was an outcome, less of lectures, and more of personal or small group tutorials with academics and close lab work with researchers. This continues to remain the special feature of the Oxbridge system and one that most universities in Canada struggle to approximate in undergraduate honours programmes or at the graduate level. To their credit, a few universities, such as Brandon University, are able to offer significant portions of their undergraduate programmes via seminars and labs, not lectures. Small group interactive instruction is ideal because students have the opportunity to manipulate the concepts and ideas they are learning, express them in different words, think of their own applications, and hear the thoughts of people other than their professor. All this leads to greater understanding, increased retention, and better papers and final exams: in short, a better education.
Half of the courses I took towards a four-year undergraduate degree at a large Canadian university were delivered by seminar. Every undergraduate course I have taught at three institutions in both the UK and Canada have been by seminar or with time divided equally between seminars and lectures. Abandoning live lectures in favour of web delivery might change university education, but it would not constitute a revolution because lectures are not the sole method of university teaching.
A contribution to any discussion about the value and future of postsecondary education in Canada, as it relates to delivery methods, has to include reference to our interest and ability to limit the growth of classes and increase opportunities for students to interact with instructors and other students in the classroom. In particular, we need to talk about the lure of the virtual university with its classes of thousands and its economies of scale. The delivery of university courses at a distance has been of tremendous benefit to many people and new technologies have greatly enhanced our ability to provide top quality distance education. Such accomplishments should not be denigrated. However, we will need to debate the value of further embracing 'webucation' because this is where the potential for technology driven revolutionary change lies.
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is spearheading the development of a UK e-university. Stephen Marston, HEFCE's Director of Institutions and Projects, expressed the impact of computerised communications and information technologies when he stated: "We are using technology to rethink fundamentally what a higher education programme could be."2 The Financial Times has reported that human contact in the HEFCE's e-university will be with 'navigators' (individuals providing course selection advice). Students will only experience live instruction if they attend summer schools or pay for tutorial support. A number of UK institutions participating in the e-university project have expressed the view that "face-to-face support, would always be necessary to ensure that the learner had a satisfactory and effective learning experience… and hence the e-University would need to face up to the cost implications of this at an early stage."
We can expect and possibly welcome the supplanting of the book by the computer as the principal method of transmitting knowledge in university education. We can also speculate about advantages to be gained from freeing some professors from the data transmission component of lectures in introductory survey courses. However, we should proceed with caution in thinking that the computer and its accompanying technologies can supplant faculty as a method of developing understanding. "We feel very strongly that you cannot have a university without interaction between faculty and students…. Technology may facilitate that interaction, but it is not a substitute for it." This note of caution is not premised on a sentimental conservative attachment to traditional methods. It is based on an understanding that lectures are not just another mode of data transmission; they are about teaching. If we want Canadian university educations to continue to keep Canada at the forefront of nations able to address contemporary issues and thrive in the developing knowledge economy, then we need to recognise, affirm and preserve the student-professor relationship. If we turn over too much 'teaching' to the computer then we may suffer as a society as much as if we returned to rote methods of instruction. We need to continue to provide universities as places where students are exposed to deep interaction and engagement with knowledge so that understanding can be nourished.
References
Francis, Diane (2001, March 5). A learning revolution, Maclean's, 50.
Kelly, Jim (2001, January 4). Taking over the world by degrees. Financial Times.
Retrieved 22 March 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3Z0Z7VKHC&live=true
Higher Education Funding Council for England (2001, February 13). Responses
to consultation on the proposed e-University business model. Retrieved 22 March
2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/partners/euniv/conresp.htm.