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Lectures as a form of teaching made sense at the time when they were first introduced: the Middle Ages. That was before printing press was invented, books were
by mamon 8y ago
Lectures as a form of teaching made sense at the time when they were first introduced: the Middle Ages. That was before printing press was invented, books were rare and expensive items so the students would gather in a big hall and the professor would read the book aloud, which for most students would be the only chance in their life to learn from it.
Now that we have invented not only the print, but also computers, ebook readers, tablets, the lectures as a form of teaching are complete waste of time - trading them for more classroom/lab time is the way to go.
- faceplanted 8y agoYou're forgetting the most important selling point of lectures: Anyone can give them with little to no preparation if they know the material. Lectures are basically the "default" teaching method, you take something you already know and explain it piece by piece. putting knowledge down in any form of media is almost inherently harder and more expensive than just explaining it in person or on camera. Back in university, every time I had to find an explanation for something online on YouTube, recorded lectures were usually the worst choice, if I had a choice, because there was often no produced video explaining something, but there were always lectures recorded from somewhere. Because lectures are easy. I did actually find one place where lectures were better than directly reading the material, and it was mathematics lectures, just because amount of symbols and obscure language that often goes into putting something mathematical down in text over just explaining it can be ridiculous to someone like me who has never managed to learn the latin and greek alphabets however many times I tried.
- mamon 8y agoThere’s a joke that lectures are how professors are doing spaced repetition of their basic knowledge :-) It also gives them the opportunity to advertise the books they’ve written
- anonymous5133 8y agoCompletely agree. If lectures are built they are to be interactive type lectures where the student actively has to interact. The rest of the time should be spent doing simulations/projects or anything else which directly requires the student to apply the subject. That's really how you learn: Get some project/problem to solve then work through it. If you have issues, you attempt to find the solutions to solve the problem. Rinse and repeat.