I think this is an interesting way to think about lecture.

I'm tending to lecture a bit more in my hybrid ethics course -- mostly because the idea behind the coruse is to start every week by giving the whole class a standard set of arguments, then the discussion happens in smaller groups that meet f-t-f ANd on-line.

I'm not sure it's working -- but, their exam short-answers were much better than I'd anticipated. We'll see what happens at the end of the semester when I'm seeing presentations and reading papers.

Since I've defended multiple-choice exam questions here on ProfHacker and PowerPoint over on my blog, I'll continue the trend here by defending the lecture.

Jason, you make some really good points here about the affective benefits of a lecture. A good lecturer can inspire interest and excitement in ways that a textbook often cannot. From a cognitive science perspective, a lecture can also go a long way to explain something students find difficult to understand. However, lecture-as-explanation works best if you've created a "time for telling," that is, conditions under which students want to hear your explanation. When students clearly see the limits of their own understanding, for instance, they're more interested in hearing an explanation that helps them move past those limits.

A lecture is, in some ways, just another tool in one's teaching toolbox. The key to lecturing well is to know when to use it, to apply it when it serves a particular purpose. Providing a well-timed explanation and motivating interest in a topic--those are two very reasonable purposes for lectures.

The idea of a "time for telling" is crucial to delivering a good lecture. I try to get students talking early in the class, sometimes by looking carefully at a few passages, and then segue into a lecture that ties several passages together into a larger point. That seems to be one good way of integrating the two (and I stole it from the example of a great lecturer I heard in a summer seminar a few years ago).

And having said that, I'll say too that I'm starting to think we've maligned the lecture for too long. It does have it's uses. I remember one lecture I got as an undergrad in particular. I should say, I remember how it affected me. It was on Marlowe's "Hero and Leander," and I walked away from it thinking, "I would like to be that subtle in my reading and that learned." It was the example that mattered, the teacher's presence, as much as my understanding of the technical argument being made. For the same reason that people pack plenary talks and ditch during conference panels, I guess.

For the life of me, I can't really understand the 'anti-lecture' rhetoric. There are boring lectures, there are stimulating lectures, there are oral lectures, there are chalk/whiteboard lectures, there are PowerPoint Lectures, there are animated/video versions of all of the above.

Regardless, lectures serve an important purpose. They are a bridge between students and the material! Be it in book form or otherwise.

I'm sorry to say that (at least in the sciences), the self-taught model is only effective for those in advanced levels of study - and only then in certain circumstances. Joe or Jane Average undergrad student needs the lecture, because they often don't have the experience, motivation, or perspective to teach themselves. And it's not that students never learn anything themselves, it's that most of them need that bridge to put things into proper context.

Are lectures always effective and for everyone? No - there's a lot of difference in content deliverers (my view of lecturing). And because students often aren't well-prepared in primary and secondary schools, they get a wake-up call when they actually have to flip pages in a book and pay attention to something other than entertainment media. So, it's up to lecturers to bring home the important concepts (and facts) from their disciplines to their students in a way that is effective and relevant.

But I suppose some academics have bought into the corporate model of education that treats faculty positions as 'McJobs'. So they want to give up on all traditional lecture models, because they aren't "cost effective".

The example from "Friends" is telling. If one has to put things in the context of sitcom episodes, then something really is wrong. Perhaps it's not the content providers, but the learners that need to get their acts together. Sometimes I wonder if we, as Americans, really get how dumbed down our education systems are.

But, hey, I'd be PO'd if Hasbro did the same thing to me. I'd want to play with the toys at least.

Its all about performance. A well done lecture is a thing of beauty. Some lectures were good enough to be turned into books (Hegel's Philosophy of History was a lecture transcribed into a book by his students). Its a venue for conveying ideas, rather than just content or 'facts.'

Also, students will tell you they want lecture, not because they are lazy, but because they know that there are a lot of gaps in their knowledge. A good lecture can help them fill in the blank spaces.

Finally, a good lecture is about cheer-leading for the material. As commenters have suggested, a good lecture can help students connect with the rest of the class material.

Mills Kelly has an interesting post on his blog, edwired.org, arguing against the use of lectures. Given the points made above about the value of lectures, I'm not sure if I agree with Mills this time around.

I don't think it's reasonable to contrast lecturing with "the self-taught model." There are a variety of teaching methods other than lectures that help students learn, so instructors who don't lecture (much or at all) aren't necessarily relying on a "self-taught" model of instruction. I, too, agree that there's a lot of anti-lecture rhetoric, but I think a more balanced view--a consideration of conditions under which lectures are effective and conditions under which they are not--is more useful.

That's why the sciences have LAB courses, to give students the hands on approach where possible.

Except that lab courses have their own problems. Most are mind-numbing, not mind-expanding. Students just follow the steps in the lab manual like it was a cookbook, often not making connections to the concepts they are meant to be learning. At some schools, the "lectures" and labs are run independently, which makes matters even worse.

I'm arguing that the opposite of the "lecture model" is NOT a "self-taught model." Self-taught implies that there is no teacher, just a student teaching herself. Teachers can play many roles other than that of explainer, and often those roles involve designing more-active learning experiences for students. Classroom activities that help students assimilate information (such as, say, peer instruction facilitated with clickers) are extremely useful, but are neither "lecture model" nor "self-taught model."

I think lab classes are logistically difficult in their preparation and execution - so there can be a cookbook feel to them when a set of tasks has to be performed for an experiment. But none of the lab courses I've been involved with are solely that. There is always a Q&A before-hand and discussion and interaction during the lab period.

The clicker model as I understand it is essentially lecture based, where students have to click an option for some review questions during the lecture to confirm their understanding or not of some concept(s). It's not clear to me that this is helpful, but I have no experience with them. And after a conversations with a few students that used them at other institutions - I'm not sold on them.

In order for professors to design and implement interactive instruction properly, they have to be given sufficient TIME, MONEY, and staff support. That's just not happening at your typical tertiary education setting.

Clickers work well for in-class, formative assessment. They also work well for engaging students in active learning in the classroom. Many who use clickers (including me) use them to structure, facilitate, and motivate small-group and classwide discussions.

For a nice introduction to using clickers for active learning, check out an interview I did for the National Teaching & Learning Forum.

And, yes, labs in the sciences don't have to be cookbook-style, but that tends to be the default model. I've talked with numerous lab instructors who are working very hard to move away from that cookbook model, however. It's not easy, unfortunately.