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Your comment got me thinking: in the past, the main ways of learning were through lecture and reading. I wonder if live lectures have always been as poorly effi
by Herodotus38 10y ago
Your comment got me thinking: in the past, the main ways of learning were through lecture and reading. I wonder if live lectures have always been as poorly efficient as they are now. With the invention of audio recording, video, internet etc... I could see how our modern ability to concentrate on one long topic have been reduced. I think back to Greek and Roman times when oratory was a larger part of education and I presume (perhaps without good reason) that the listening skills of the audience was greater.
- inputcoffee 10y agoGreat point. I wonder if the mobile phone has changed our attention.
- sdenton4 10y agoLecture sucks as a medium. There's a pile of education research on this. We succeed in spite of the shortcomings of lecture, not because of its strengths... And a lot of people who don't succeed in lecture-based structures cget a better chance at success as we could deploy other learning media.
- GFischer 10y agoEven lecturers realize it's a total disaster, but there's a lot of inertia to overcome. Online MOOCs work so much better, but they don't have the social aspect and the live guidance factor.
- Herodotus38 10y agoI completely agree and I've also seen the studies about retention rates of various types of learning. The confounder in my mind is that obviously all these studies were done since the advent of newer media options. I'm just wondering if we were able to redo the studies in people from long ago if there would be any difference at all? Possibly not, but it makes me wonder if there were, is there a way to train ourselves to learn better learn for lectures. Secondly, even if it is possible to be a better "lecture learner", is it even worth it (for example is there a ceiling effect?)