Anyone else surprised by the amount of lecturing in humanities classes at T10 universities?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Times have changed. Smartphones have decimated people’s attention span. Way too many distractions now. Lectures never worked especially well and are even less effective now.
Studies have shown that listeners only retain about 5-10% information from lectures. It is a very inefficient way to deliver information.

Thats why you take notes. Almost all of med school was lectures. Med CME conferences are lectures. Part of undergrad was lectures, part seminar: still took notes . College wellness events have lectures for parents of freshman, and half the audience of parents were taking notes. Take notes if you want to retain more! My kids both took notes, unprompted, on college info sessions they were the most interested in.

Stop talking about med school which is a unique environment. There is a lot of memorisation involved in med school. And med students tend to be obsessive grade grubbers - they pretty much have to be just to get into med school

so your argument is that education should be keyed to the laziest learners? ok.

People have this really stupid belief that memorization is bad when it is actually key to you learning anything.
If you can't remember vast amount of details, you are going to be a bad worker, no matter the major.

Have you taken physics? No memorization involved. Very different from biology. That is why premed students are often scared of physics. Because it involves a different way of learning and understanding than what many of them are used to. You don’t have to memorise equations. You can just derive them if you need them

Again, lectures are not about rote memorizing (although that has it’s place). They are about conveying information verbally - aka direct instruction. This is especially important in math and physics.

Terrible take. Lectures are the worst way to teach physics, which should be taught through modeling. Even Harvard switched to a form of active learning in their physics classes after determining that students don't learn anything in lectures. Just google it.

Not sure what you mean by “lectures” here. Direct instruction (ie teacher verbally explaining concepts) is key to teaching. It’s not the only component but it’s key.

The most sophisticated high school AP physics education uses exclusively modeling with NO direct instruction. Those students do better on the AP Exam.

I doubt that.

(Also modeling is a type of direct instruction.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Times have changed. Smartphones have decimated people’s attention span. Way too many distractions now. Lectures never worked especially well and are even less effective now.
Studies have shown that listeners only retain about 5-10% information from lectures. It is a very inefficient way to deliver information.

Thats why you take notes. Almost all of med school was lectures. Med CME conferences are lectures. Part of undergrad was lectures, part seminar: still took notes . College wellness events have lectures for parents of freshman, and half the audience of parents were taking notes. Take notes if you want to retain more! My kids both took notes, unprompted, on college info sessions they were the most interested in.

Stop talking about med school which is a unique environment. There is a lot of memorisation involved in med school. And med students tend to be obsessive grade grubbers - they pretty much have to be just to get into med school

so your argument is that education should be keyed to the laziest learners? ok.

People have this really stupid belief that memorization is bad when it is actually key to you learning anything.
If you can't remember vast amount of details, you are going to be a bad worker, no matter the major.

Have you taken physics? No memorization involved. Very different from biology. That is why premed students are often scared of physics. Because it involves a different way of learning and understanding than what many of them are used to. You don’t have to memorise equations. You can just derive them if you need them

Again, lectures are not about rote memorizing (although that has it’s place). They are about conveying information verbally - aka direct instruction. This is especially important in math and physics.

Terrible take. Lectures are the worst way to teach physics, which should be taught through modeling. Even Harvard switched to a form of active learning in their physics classes after determining that students don't learn anything in lectures. Just google it.

Not sure what you mean by “lectures” here. Direct instruction (ie teacher verbally explaining concepts) is key to teaching. It’s not the only component but it’s key.

The most sophisticated high school AP physics education uses exclusively modeling with NO direct instruction. Those students do better on the AP Exam.

I doubt that.

(Also modeling is a type of direct instruction.)

The instructor sets up experiments and experiences to allow students to derive the principles themselves. It's at least about as far from lecturing as you can get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Times have changed. Smartphones have decimated people’s attention span. Way too many distractions now. Lectures never worked especially well and are even less effective now.
Studies have shown that listeners only retain about 5-10% information from lectures. It is a very inefficient way to deliver information.

+1

If professors are going to lecture, they should just type up what they're going to say and assign it as a reading and cancel class.

So you think we’ve all lost the capacity to understand verbal information? The rise of Youtube and TikTok show the opposite.

A lecture is an important part of learning. The student needs to be engaged though- prepare ahead with the readings, listen actively, and take notes.

Lectures are spoon-feeding for less capable minds, which is fine, but there is no reason smart people should be subject to it.