what is lecture method in education

The Lecture Method: Advantages and Challenges in Modern Education

Table of Contents

Have you ever sat through a lecture, hanging on to every word the speaker says, only to realize that you’ve absorbed very little? Or perhaps you’ve been on the other side, delivering a lecture and watching faces in the audience drift into expressions of daydreams? The lecture method has been a cornerstone of education for centuries, but its effectiveness in modern learning environments is increasingly called into question. Let’s explore the ins and outs of this traditional teaching approach.

Historical backdrop of the lecture method

Originating in the halls of medieval universities , the lecture method has long been the default mode of instruction. In an era before the printing press , lectures were essential for disseminating knowledge, with students often copying down what the lecturer said word for word. Over time, the lecture method has evolved but remains a staple in educational settings. Its endurance begs the question: what benefits has it continued to offer?

Key advantages of the lecture method

• Controlled lesson delivery: Lecturers can design their presentations meticulously, ensuring that each point is delivered with precision.
• Efficiency: This method allows for the coverage of a significant amount of material in a relatively short period.
• Expert narrative: Lectures can be a medium for storytelling, with the potential to inspire through a well-crafted narrative.

The cracks in the lecture hall

Despite its longevity, the lecture method isn’t without its critics. One of the most significant downsides is the potential for passive learning . Students often become mere receptacles of information, with limited interaction that can lead to disengagement. In a world that’s increasingly interactive, this model of teaching is often seen as antiquated.

Challenges of the lecture approach

• Passivity and limited engagement: The one-way flow of information from lecturer to student can lead to a lack of active participation and engagement.
• Learning styles mismatch: Not all students thrive under the lecture format; some may need hands-on or visual experiences to learn effectively.
• Retention issues: Studies suggest that passive listening leads to lower retention rates compared to more interactive methods.

Adapting the lecture for the modern classroom

Recognizing these challenges doesn’t mean we should do away with lectures entirely. Instead, educators are finding ways to adapt the lecture method to better fit today’s diverse and inter active learning environments.

Innovative lecture strategies

• Blended learning: Combining lectures with online resources and interactive activities can enhance the learning experience.
• Flipped classroom: Students review lecture materials at home and engage in hands-on activities in class, promoting deeper understanding.
• Active learning techniques: Incorporating discussions, problem-solving, and other participatory elements can make lectures more engaging.

Alternatives to the traditional lecture

As we move away from the ‘sage on the stage’ model, various teaching methods have emerged as compelling alternatives to the traditional lecture. These approaches aim to make learning an active process, directly involving students in their own education.

Engaging teaching methodologies

• Project-based learning: Students work on real-world projects, applying what they learn in a practical context.
• Cooperative learning: This technique encourages students to work together in groups, fostering collaboration and communication skills.
• Technology-enhanced learning: Using multimedia and interactive tools can make lessons more dynamic and appealing to digital natives.

Where does the lecture method stand today?

In the face of evolving educational paradigms, the lecture method finds itself at a crossroads. While it can still be a powerful tool when used judiciously and combined with other techniques, its role as the dominant form of instruction is waning. Modern educators are tasked with striking a balance, integrating the best aspects of lectures with newer, more interactive teaching methods.

The future of lecturing

• Hybrid models: Lectures will likely become part of a broader teaching strategy, blending various instructional methods to cater to different learning preferences.
• Customization and personalization: Advances in technology may allow lectures to be tailored to individual student needs, enhancing their relevance and impact.
• Continuous evolution: As our understanding of learning and cognition grows, so too will our approaches to teaching, including the use of lectures.

The lecture method, with its storied history and enduring presence, still holds value in the modern educational landscape. Yet, it must evolve to remain relevant. By integrating traditional lectures with interactive techniques and taking advantage of technological advancements, educators can create a more dynamic, engaging, and effective learning experience for their students.

What do you think? Are lectures an indispensable part of your learning experience, or do you feel they need a complete overhaul to stay relevant? How do you see the role of lecturing changing in the future of education?

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Learning & Teaching

1 Understanding Learning

• What is Learning?
• Nature of Learning
• Learning and Related Concepts
• Dimensions of Learning
• Learning Styles
• Pace of Learning
• Modes of Learning
• Transfer of Learning

2 Approaches to Learning

• Behaviouristic Approach to Learning
• Cognitive Approach to Learning
• Social Learning Approaches
• Humanistic Approach to Learning

3 Learning for Construction of Knowledge

• Constructivism: An Introduction
• Various Constructivists’ Ideas
• Constructive Learning Environment
• How Learning Takes Place

4 Learning In Various Contexts

• Active Learning
• Observational Learning
• Situated Learning
• Collaborative Learning
• Learning Out of the School

5 Learner in Socio-Cultural Context

• Socio-cultural Diversity among Learners
• Factors Affecting Learners
• Changing Perception about Learners
• Various Type of Learners
• Differently-abled Learners

6 Learner as an Individual-I

• Concept of Intelligence
• Intelligence and its Role in Learning
• Understanding IQ, EQ, and SQ
• Multiple Intelligence
• Concept of Personality
• Personality and Learning

7 Learner as an Individual-II

• Learner Preparedness

8 Understanding Teaching

• Nature of Teaching: Dual Nature
• Teaching as a Morally Laden Activity
• Interrelationship between Teaching, Learning, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Concepts Related to Teaching
• Phases of Teaching
• Maxims of Teaching
• Teaching as a Complex Activity
• Teaching as a Profession
• Role of Teacher in Providing Dynamic Curricular Experiences

9 Planning Teaching-Learning

• Considerations for Instructional Planning in Classroom
• Planning for Teaching
• Behaviourist Lesson Planning
• Alternative Approach to Planning
• Constructivist Lesson Planning (5-E Approach)

10 Organizing Teaching-Learning

• Designing Instructions
• Basic Consideration for Selecting a Method
• Lecture Method
• Demonstration Method
• Team Teaching
• Inquiry Approach
• Problem Solving
• Cooperative Learning

11 Teaching-Learning Resources

• Teaching-Learning Resources
• Learner and Their Environment as Learning Resources
• Classroom as a Resource
• Community as a Learning Resource
• Improvised Resources
• ICT and Multimedia as Learning Resources

12 Managing Classroom Teaching-Learning

• Management and Instruction
• Classroom Management: The Concept
• Understanding Learners’ Needs
• Principles of Classroom Management

13 Teacher in Diverse Role

• Teacher as a Person
• Teacher’s Personal Characteristics
• Teacher as a Transmitter of Knowledge
• Teacher as a Planner
• Teacher as a Facilitator
• Teacher as a Co-creator
• Teacher as a Leader
• Teacher as a Manager
• Teacher as a Counsellor

14 Teacher as Innovator and Action Researcher

• Innovation: Need and Concept
• Types of Innovation
• Process of Innovation
• Teacher as an Action Researcher
• Pre-conditions for Taking Up Action Research
• Quality Issues in Action Research
• Steps Involved in Action Research
• Format for Documenting Your Action Research

15 Teachers as Reflective Practitioner

• Concept of Reflection
• Different Perspectives on Reflection
• Approaches to Reflective Thinking
• Techniques of Promoting Reflection

16 Professional Development of Teachers

• What is a Profession?
• Characteristics of a Profession
• Characteristics of Teaching Profession
• Need and Importance of Professional Development
• In-service Teacher Training as Professional Development
• Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
• CPD through ICT

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Effective Lecturing

• Student Group Work
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“Good teachers do not merely ‘deliver content’ to students, but wake them up, throw them on their feet, and pull the chair away.”   –Wendy Brown, Heller Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley

Why Lecture

Today, there are many teaching methods at our disposal. Educational innovations and research continue to provide new approaches to teaching and new strategies to help students learn. While robust evidence exists for the efficacy of alternative pedagogies, the lecture continues to be the preferred classroom method for many teachers.

There are several purposes for which the lecture is well suited:

• Presenting information otherwise unavailable to students. The lecture is a perfect way to share your personal research and inquiry trends of your discipline
• Synthesizing information from a variety of sources. In addition to reading scholarly work, a lecture can explicitly demonstrate how knowledge is created by many researchers working on different aspects of a problem or topic.
• Engaging students through storytelling. Sharing a personal experience, a researcher’s journey, or how the “sticky” problems are addressed in your discipline can pique curiosity and bolster students’ intrinsic motivation.  
• Providing context. Conveying how course content relates to other areas or how it is relevant to students’ experiences clarifies why content is worth learning. This is especially critical for novices in a field.
• Presenting up-to-date material. A lecture can effectively inform students of evolving knowledge and points of view while text-books become outdated quickly.  
• How problems are approached 
• How information is organized and synthesized
• The logic structures and frameworks commonly used in the field
• How new knowledge can be integrated with what one learned previously
• Clarifying confusing concepts, principles, and ideas. When a lecture is given in response to questions from students, or after quiz/test results reveal misconceptions, lecture can be a powerful way of improving student comprehension, especially if the lecture is interactive.

Designing An Effective Lecture

Barkley and Major (2018) suggest that the debate over lecture versus active learning maintains a false dichotomy of one or the other, while most faculty employ both lecture and engagement strategies to varying degrees in their teaching. When students are actively engaged with the material during a lecture, their focus and attention increase (Ernst & Colthrope 2007). The two most important variables when planning an effective lecture are duration and interactivity. How long will you talk? How will students engage with the material, with each other, and with you?

In his book What the Best College Teachers Do , Ken Bain reports on interviews with dozens of exemplary college teachers that, “[p]erhaps the most significant skill the teachers in our study displayed in the classroom, laboratory, studio, or wherever they met with students was the ability to communicate orally in ways that stimulated thought” (Bain, 2004, p. 117). Designing a lecture to intentionally stimulate students thinking, rather than just deliver content, requires a student-centered focus. 

Research finds that student learning is enhanced by chunking lecture material into 5-15-minute segments, and interspersing with short, active learning exercises. These activities give students opportunities to engage with the material and to process it more deeply. Regardless of your lecture duration and interactivity, answering the following questions can help:

• What is the purpose of your lecture? Include learning outcome(s)—what do you hope students will gain from your lecture? What will they be able to do with that knowledge?
• How will you give students a way of organizing their listening and/or note taking? An outline, visual, some kind of “advance organizer” (see Additional Resources below)?
• How will you start? What will you do to gain attention? Share a story, problem, question, scenario/vignette?
• What are the main “chunks” of your lecture? How could these chunks help students see the organization/structure of your material?
• For each chunk: What is the core idea? What examples, illustrations, stories, metaphors, or visuals will you use to convey the core idea?
• Pauses. At what points will you pause? What will you ask students to do during those pauses? How can these pauses help them process/think about what they have just heard?

Addressing Resistance

Choosing to lecture more interactively may raise concerns, for both you and your students.

Common Faculty Concerns 

• Will it take more time? Yes, it does take time to design and learn new teaching strategies. Starting small helps; you can break up a lecture with a couple of simple “think/pair/share” exercises (see Peer Instruction below), and then build gradually on what you find works.  
• Must I sacrifice content? If you take time from a lecture to have students engage, you may have to remove material from your lecture. Rethinking what content needs to be in the course, and how first exposure to that content needs to occur, is critical. Consider alternate ways to deliver content to make room in your lecture for interaction.

Student Resistance In disciplines where large lecture classes are the norm, students may resent and resist the expectation to actively engage. While more students now enter college having experienced active learning, there may be some who expect and enjoy the passivity of a traditional lecture format. If students must engage with peers, gaps in preparation and knowledge could be exposed, while the passive lecture format “offers the comfort of anonymity” (Benvenuto, 2002). Faculty can counter student resistance by being explicit about their teaching methods and the rationale for their use. Gary Smith (2008) suggests an exercise on the first day of class to help students understand how the course pedagogy will help them learn (see resource on The First Day of Class ).

Additional Resources

Effective Lecturing . This 4-page resource from the Center for Faculty Excellence at UNC Chapel Hill provides in-depth suggestions for keeping students engaged and tailoring lectures to student’s existing knowledge. 

How to Create Memorable Lectures is an article from Stanford’s “Tomorrow’s Professor” newsletter. By framing the lecture in the context of what we know about learning and short-term memory, it provides strong rationales for lecture practices that mirror how students learn.

Advance Organizers is a list of resources and references. An advance organizer is a visual organizational tool assist students during a lecture to integrate new knowledge with what they already know.

Peer Instruction  is a simple way to engage students actively during a lecture without sacrificing course content.

Bain, K. Barkley, E. F., & Major, C. H. (2018). Interactive Lecturing: A Handbook for College Faculty. John Wiley & Sons.

Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. John Wiley & Sons.

Benvenuto, M. (2002). Educational reform: Why the academy doesn’t change. Thought & Action, 18(1/2), 63-74.

Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick. Harvard University Press.

Chilwant, K. S. (2012). Comparison of two teaching methods, structured interactive lectures and conventional lectures. Biomedical Research, 23(3).

Ernst, H., & Colthorpe, K. (2007). The efficacy of interactive lecturing for students with diverse science backgrounds. Advances in Physiology Education, 31(1), 41-44.

Jones, J.E. (2007). Reflections on the lecture: Outmoded medium or instrument of inspiration? In Journal of Further and Higher Education. 31/4, 397-406.

Meguid, E. A., & Collins, M. (2017). Students’ perceptions of lecturing approaches: traditional versus interactive teaching. Advances in medical education and practice, 8, 229.

Smith, G. A. (2008, September). First-day questions for the learner-centered classroom. In Natl Teach Learn Forum (Vol. 17, No. 5, pp. 1-4).

Snell, Y. S. L. S. (1999). Interactive lecturing: strategies for increasing participation in large group presentations. Medical Teacher, 21(1), 37-42.

Tolman, A.O. & Kremling, J. (2017). Why Students Resist Learning: A Practical Model for Understanding and Helping Students.  Sterling, VA: Stylus Publications.

White, G. (2011). Interactive lecturing. The clinical teacher, 8(4), 230-235.

What is the Lecture Method?

April 15, 2024

The lecture method is a teaching technique where the instructor delivers a presentation to a large group of students. The lecture aims to provide information in a structured and concise manner, allowing the students to take notes and absorb the information presented.

While this method is criticized for being passive and not promoting interaction between students and instructors, it remains a popular teaching technique used in higher education institutions.

Additionally, lectures can be followed by discussions, debates, or quizzes to enhance student understanding and retention of the material presented.

The Lecture Method

Lecturing is a conventional teaching approach in which a teacher stands in front of a class, delivering a speech on a particular topic. The method usually involves a one-way form of communication where the instructor does most of the talking while the students listen and take notes.

Despite the growing popularity of more interactive teaching methods, the lecture method still remains a widely used teaching tool.

Here are some defining characteristics of the lecture method:

• The lecturer is the primary source of information.
• The lecture is usually presented in a structured format, often including an introduction, body, and conclusion.
• The students are passive listeners and take notes.
• The lecture may be accompanied by visuals like slides, graphs, or videos.

How The Lecture Method Has Evolved Over Time

The lecture method has undergone some significant changes throughout history. Here are some of the notable ways in which the lecture method has evolved over time:

• In the past, lecturers used to give lengthy monologues that could span hours. Nowadays, lectures are typically shorter and more focused.
• The use of multimedia has become more prevalent in recent years, giving lectures a more interactive and engaging character.
• There has been a growing trend towards incorporating active learning techniques into lectures, allowing students to actively participate in the learning process.

Why Do So Many Instructors Still Rely On The Lecture Method?

Despite criticism from those who favor more interactive and student-centered methods, the lecture method continues to be popular among instructors. Below are some reasons why lecturing persists as a teaching approach:

• It allows instructors to cover a vast amount of content in a relatively short period, making it useful for presenting foundational knowledge or introducing complex topics.
• For some instructors, lecturing is a tried-and-true method they are comfortable with and have confidence in.
• For some students, taking notes and listening to a lecture are the only ways they feel they can absorb a lot of information.

The lecture method still plays a vital role in today’s education system and will likely remain a useful tool for many instructors.

Preparing A Lecture That Engages

A lecture that doesn’t capture the audience’s attention can be boring and ineffective. We will look at three important aspects of preparing a lecture that engages: selecting the topic, setting goals and objectives, and identifying your audience.

Selecting The Topic

Choosing the right topic is critical to a lecture’s success. Here are some key points to consider when selecting the topic:

• Choose a topic that you are passionate about and have expertise in. This will allow you to deliver the lecture with confidence.
• Consider your audience’s interests and needs. A topic that resonates with them will keep them engaged.
• Avoid topics that are too broad or too narrow. A topic that is too broad will be hard to cover in a single lecture while a topic that is too narrow may not be of interest to your audience.

Setting Goals And Objectives

Setting clear goals and objectives for your lecture will help you stay focused and ensure that you cover all the necessary material. Here are some tips for setting goals and objectives:

• Determine what you want your audience to learn from your lecture
• Create specific and measurable objectives that align with your goals
• Use action-oriented language in your objectives to clearly define what you want your audience to do or understand

Identifying Your Audience

Knowing your audience is crucial to preparing a lecture that engages them. Here are some tips for identifying your audience:

• Consider the demographics of your audience, such as their age range, education level, and interests
• Determine what motivates your audience, such as their professional goals or personal interests
• Analyze your audience’s expectations and needs, such as what they hope to gain from your lecture

Preparing a lecture that engages your audience requires careful consideration of the topic, goals and objectives, and audience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the lecture method.

The lecture method is a traditional form of teaching where the instructor delivers a lesson to a large group of students through verbal communication.

What Are The Benefits Of Using The Lecture Method?

The lecture method can be an effective way to deliver information quickly and efficiently to a large group of students. Lectures can also be customized for different learning styles and easily adapted for distance learning.

What Are The Drawbacks Of The Lecture Method?

The lecture method can be passive and limit student engagement. It can also become monotonous and overwhelming, resulting in poor retention of information.

Is The Lecture Method Still Relevant In Modern Education?

While there are alternative teaching methods, the lecture method remains a valuable tool for educators. It can be utilized in conjunction with other methods to deliver the most effective learning experience for students.

The lecture method has been a staple in education for centuries. Despite its efficacy, criticisms of the method persist and have given rise to alternative teaching strategies. While lectures can be engaging and effective when delivered well and paired with supporting materials, educators should aim to incorporate interactive elements and cater to diverse learning styles. The introduction of technology has revolutionized the traditional lecture model, allowing more dynamic and engaging instruction. It is therefore important for educators to embrace the evolving landscape of education and find new and innovative ways of delivering course content to optimize student learning.

Teacher-Centered Vs Student-Centered Methods

What is the Demonstration Method?

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Lecturing Strategies

Tips for running effective lectures.

Lecture-style learning can work well for communicating course goals and content. If you are to use a lecture as a way to communicate information to your students, consider implementing the following tips:

1. Establish learning goals

Once you and your students know where you’re going, the trip is easier and more efficient. Often the very act of creating learning goals results in reducing the amount of material to be covered, since you have brought your course into more focus.

2. Cut down on the amount of material you are trying to cover

Trying to cover too much material is a common problem for most higher education instructors. Unfortunately, when too much content is covered, students tend to struggle to absorb the material. To maximize your students’ engagement with the content you’ve spent time preparing, be judicious about what you include and focus on the core pieces of material that are absolutely essential for each lesson.

Lectures, particularly in large enrollment courses, should cover the following kinds of material:

key points and general themes

especially difficult material

material not covered elsewhere (i.e. not covered in a textbook chapter, article, or other source)

examples and illustrations

material of high interest/relevance to students

3. Focus your lecture on analyzing issues or problems, rather than on conveying factual information

Rely on students to get facts from their reading. Devote lectures to more in-depth discussion and analysis. For instance, begin each class session with a question that you will devote the session to answering. To do this approach, turn a general topic into a question. For example, instead of focusing a lecture on “the ways lodgepole pines propagate,” consider revising the topic to: “Why do lodgepole pines need fire to propagate?” Alternatively, instead of giving a lecture on “The Rise of the Middle Class in Postwar America,” consider a revision to:  “What factors were the major drivers in the rise of the middle class?” 

You can ask for ideas at the beginning of class where students can anticipate the responses to the question. That way, students are already considering the possible answers that will be discussed in class.

4. Engage your students through active learning practices and interactive lectures

It’s difficult for anyone to sit for 50 or 80 minutes and simply listen. Consider breaking up the lecture with some moments for pauses, questions, and interactions. For example:

Break the class into groups (yes, even in a large class—you can just ask them to turn to the two or three people around them) to investigate a problem or answer a question. After five minutes, you can request for volunteers to share their group discussions or have students share an aggregated response in a Google Doc or through a poll. 

Hand out index cards and ask students to jot down a question they have after a 20-minute segment of time has passed. Have them pass the cards three or four people to the left. Then, have the individuals who have received the cards write down a possible response and pass the card back to the original question-asker. Then, request students to volunteer their questions and the answers and offer feedback as needed.

Stop the lecture with a group discussion question that could be engaged with verbally or via a poll or group Google Doc.

Show a short, relevant video clip.

Connect the topic to a recent news story and invite students to follow a link or story on social media for a few minutes.

For an in-person course, consider having your students sit in lecture with others from their section, and you can then direct exercises and questions to them by section. Not only will they be more inclined to engage with people they already know, but you will be reinforcing the importance of the sections and making the course seem more of a unified whole.

5. Provide opportunities for assess their understanding during the lecture

Quick, frequent, formative assessments help students to focus on areas they need work on, while also breaking up lectures and increasing student engagement. 

For example, you could try the following approaches:

1) Hand out 3 x 5 cards at the end of the class and ask students to identify the major points covered. Collect them, skim them, and begin the next class by talking about their responses. 

2) Begin the lecture by soliciting questions (on cards or not) based on their reading for the day. Then, be sure to address these questions during the class time.

6. Take the temperature with polls

Use a student response system (e.g., iClicker Cloud or Poll Everywhere) to get instant feedback on your students' comprehension of a concept:

If your class is too big to track how individuals are doing between exams, have your students take a quick anonymous poll to gauge whether or not a concept was understood. With a student response system, you can poll students on the fly and adjust your content appropriately. This saves time spent unnecessarily on concepts that are already understood and allows you to follow-up only where needed. Keep students engaged by asking thoughtful questions they can answer individually, and then asking the class to respond to the collective results.

Center for Teaching

Effective visuals, interactive lectures.

“Lecturing is not simply a matter of standing in front of a class and reciting what you know. The classroom lecture is a special form of communication in which voice, gesture, movement, facial expression, and eye contact can either complement or detract from the content. No matter what your topic, your delivery and manner of speaking immeasurably influence your students’ attentiveness and learning.”

The above quote is from “Delivering a Lecture,” a chapter in Barbara Gross Davis’ classic text Tools for Teaching . That chapter is an excellent resource for learning how to lecture well. See also Davis’ chapter, “Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course.”

When planning a lecture, keep in mind that you have control or influence over several elements of your classroom:

• Visual Message – The slides and other visual aids you use can either complement or confuse your verbal message, depending on how you design them. Consider how photos and other images might function as metaphors that make your points more memorable. (For an example, see the “Lecturing Basics” slideshow above.)
• Physical Presence – While some instructors are naturally gifted public speakers, we can all be more aware of and leverage our physical presence to better communicate to our audiences. (Watch “ The Act of Teaching: Theater Techniques for Classrooms and Presentations ” for great advice from Harvard University’s Nancy Houfek on improving your physical presence in the classroom.)
• Verbal Message – Whether you prepare typed lecture notes or just improvise in the classroom, the words you say are an integral part of your lecture.
• Students’ Notes – Students can often spend more mental energy taking notes during class than thinking about your content. Consider ways you can make it easier for your students to take notes so they can focus more on engaging with your material.
• What Students Think – As Angelo and Cross say in their classic book Classroom Assessment Techniques, “teaching without learning is just talking.” How can you help your students mentally grapple with your material during class?
• What Students Say & Do – Keep in mind that even in a so-called lecture class, you don’t have to lecture the whole time. Consider small-group and whole-class activities that might enhance your students learning.

Garr Reynolds’ book Presentation Zen is a great introduction to effective use of slides in presentations.  Garr also maintains a great blog on presentations . Some key points from Presentation Zen :

• Limit bullet points and text. Keep in mind that your slides probably shouldn’t function as your own personal teleprompter. Your slides are for your students’ benefit. If your slides say just about everything that you say, then your students won’t know where to pay attention–to you or to your slides.
• Use high-quality graphics. The clip art that comes with PowerPoint is certainly convenient (and more visually appealing than it used to be), but there are online sources of free, high-resolution images that can have much greater visual impact. For instance, millions of photos are available for free, educational use on the photo-sharing site Flickr under the Creative Commons license .
• Use appropriate charts. As analytical designer Edward Tufte likes to point out, PowerPoint is not a great tool at sharing complicated infographics. If you have a complicated chart or graphic to share with your students, it’s often helpful to provide it to them as a handout. Simpler, more elegant charts often work better in PowerPoint. Think carefully about which kind of chart (pie, vertical bar, horizontal bar, line, etc.) will best communicate the idea you want to share with your students.
• Choose your fonts well. Sans-serif fonts are often easier to read on slides than serif fonts . Too many different fonts in a slide or a presentation can be distracted, so try to limit yourself to one or two. Font size matters, too. Be sure that your fonts are large enough to be read at the back of the room. And if you’re keeping your slides simple and limiting your use of text, you can usually use very large fonts.
• Spend time in the slide sorter. This is the PowerPoint view that shows you up to 20 or 30 of your slides at once. As you start to design your presentation, this view is more useful than the default one-slide-at-a-time view for structuring and organizing your content.

For more thoughts on these and other suggestions by Garr Reynolds, along with example PowerPoint slides, see his Top Ten Slide Tips .

For an alternative to PowerPoint and Keynote , try Prezi , “the zooming presentation tool.” Below you’ll find a Prezi used during a spring 2010 CFT workshop titled “Engaging Students in Large Lecture Courses” that references many of the ideas shared here.

Engaging Students in Large Lecture Classes on Prezi

For some sound advice on using Prezi in the classroom, explore this Prezi from Paul Hill:

Thoughts on using Prezi as a teaching tool on Prezi

And for a little humor , view Peter Norvig’s PowerPoint version of the Gettysburg Address (included below) to see how to ruin a great presentation with PowerPoint.

“Given that students have an attention span of around 15 to 20 minutes and that university classes are scheduled for around 50 or 75 minutes, instructors must do something to control their students’ attention. We recommend building a ‘change–up’ into your class to restart the attention clock.”

The above quote is from “ The ‘Change-Up’ in Lectures ,” an article by Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish. The article describes more than 20 practical strategies for breaking up lectures with activities that help keep students engaged and foster active learning. Here are just a few:

• Write a Question – Instead of just saying, “Are there any questions?”, ask all of your students to spend a minute or two reflecting on the lecture thus far and writing down one or two questions on paper.
• Think-Pair-Share – After posing a sufficiently difficult question, instead of asking for volunteers to answer the question, have students think about the question silently for a minute. Then have them pair up and discuss the question with their partners. Then ask for students to share their perspectives with the whole class.
• Finding Illustrative Quotations – Ask students to reread the text for the day to find quotations that support particular arguments. You might have all students address the same argument or different students look at different arguments.
• Brainstorming – As a segue to a new topic, have students share any thought, idea, story, etc. that occurs to them in relation to the new topic. Record these ideas at the board without analyzing them. After the ideas have been surfaced, then move on to more critical discussion.
• Practice Homework Problems – After lecturing on a particular type of problem, give students a problem to work at their seats that resembles the kinds of problems they’ll see on their homework. After giving students a few minutes to try to work through the problem, discuss the problem with the class.

Here are a few other ideas for more interactive lectures:

• Classroom Response Systems (“Clickers”) – These are instructional technologies that allow instructors to collect and analyze student responses to multiple-choice (and sometimes free-response) questions during class.Typically, an instructor poses a question to a group of students, students submit their answers to the question using wireless handheld devices (often called “clickers”) that beam radio frequency signals to a receiver connected to the instructor’s computer, software on the instructor’s computer displays a bar chart showing the distribution of responses, and the instructor uses these results to make “on the fly” teaching decisions that are responsive to student learning needs.For ideas on using clickers during lectures, see the CFT’s teaching guide on clickers , as well as CFT assistant director Derek Bruff’s blog on clickers .
• Backchannel – The term “backchannel” refers to the student-to-student and student-to-instructor conversations that can occur during lectures and presentations. All lectures involve some form of backchannel, such as an instructor requesting questions from students or back-of-the-room chit chat between students. However, online tools such as Twitter and  Google Moderator give instructors useful options for facilitating, directing, and leveraging backchannel conversations.Watch Monica Rankin’s “Twitter Experiment” video below for a short introduction to her use of Twitter for backchannel in her history course at the University of Texas-Dallas. See Derek Bruff’s blog posts on backchannel for additional ideas.
• Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) – It’s not uncommon to expect students to have “done the reading” in smaller seminar courses, laying the foundation for in-class discussions. This is less common in larger courses, but many faculty members in a variety of disciplines have adopted an approach called Just-in-Time Teaching that accomplishes this. The main idea is to have students read their textbooks before class, hold them accountable for doing so through pre-class or start-of-class quizzes, then design class sessions around “uncovering” and addressing student misconceptions–instead of “covering” the course material. For pedagogical and technological options for implementing Just-in-Time Teaching, see IUPUI’s JiTT site .
• Team-Based Learning (TBL) – This well-developed teaching method is similar to JiTT in that it involves leveraging pre-class student assignments. One core idea is that class time is spent having students work through problems or case studies in permanent teams, usually consisting of six students each. Students respond to questions about the problems or case studies individually, then respond to the same questions as a team. Student grades depend on both their individual performance on these quizzes as well as their team performance, providing incentives for students to engage with the material on their own as well as with their team. Class discussions are fueled by this individual and team work.For more information on TBL, see the University of British Columbia’s TBL site or this 12-minute video on TBL from the University of Texas .

For additional ideas, see the following:

• “ Tips for Teachers: Twenty Ways to Make Lectures More Participatory ,” a resource from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University
• “ Delivering Effective Lectures ,” an article by Rick Sullivan and Noel McIntosh with strategies for asking questions of students and advice specific to lectures in medical education settings
• “ The Death of the Lecture ,” a blog post about why lectures are still so popular by Inside Higher Ed blogger,  Anamaria Dutceac Segesten

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What is the Lecture Method of Teaching?

• September 5, 2023

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The lecture method of teaching is when an instructor shares knowledge with a group of students by speaking to them and guiding them through a topic step by step. But what is this strategy exactly, and why is it so popular? Let us look into it in depth in this blog to better understand its role in changing minds and spreading knowledge.

What is the lecture method of teaching?

The simplest way to define the lecture method of teaching is that the teacher speaks and students listen. Teachers can quickly deliver a lot of information using this way. The main speaker is usually the teacher, while students take notes. 

You may wonder why this strategy is effective. There is a one-way flow of information. This is due to the fact that you can teach a large number of students at the same time. As a result, it depends on the lecturer to keep the topic interesting and on the students to be attentive in seeking explanation.

Benefits of lecture method of teaching

The lecture method of teaching has been used for a long time in classrooms everywhere. It serves as a great way for all the teachers to share their knowledge with their students. Let us know the advantages of lecture method of teaching . 

1. Saves time

One of the advantages of lecture method of teaching is that it helps you communicate knowledge in an efficient way. An educator is not required to rely on multiple resources to teach students , as they can deliver the content in a single streamlined presentation. 

2. Scalability 

Scalability is another advantage of the lecture method . A large number of students can be addressed at the same time by a single teacher, making it a cost-effective and efficient technique, particularly in larger schools or settings with limited resources.

One of the distinguishing features of this teaching style is its capacity to reach a large audience without sacrificing information delivery.

3. Every student gets the same thing

In lecture method of teaching , every student in the class is exposed to the same information in the same way. This consistency guarantees that all students have an equal opportunity to understand the information and decreases the possibility of differences or misunderstandings caused by varying delivery or content.

4. Good for big groups

When teachers are unable to provide individualized attention to students in larger groups, the lecture method of teaching is used to deliver information to a large audience. This strategy assures that everyone in the classroom, regardless of their position in the class, receives the same level of education.

(Suggested: Importance of group discussion in teaching )

5. Provides additional content

Importance of lecture method of teaching is that it provides additional content to students. Lectures are not just confined to what is written in textbooks or course materials, they go beyond that. Personal insights, real-world experiences, and supplemental knowledge that may not be available through other resources can be included into educators’ lectures. 

This additional layer of knowledge enhances the learning process and gives students a broader perspective of every subject.

6. Clear plan

The organized style of lectures ensures that knowledge flows clearly and logically. Educators can prepare their course of study carefully, ensuring that each topic is introduced and developed in a logical manner. 

This detailed approach not only helps students understand the material, but it also allows them to anticipate and prepare for upcoming topics, making their learning journey more smooth and logical.

Now we know the importance of lecture method of teaching . The lecture method is a classic way to teach. It is a great way for teachers to share information with many students at once. To make it even better, teachers can use different tools like videos and ask questions during the lecture and make the learning process more fun and engaging for them. 

In short, lectures can be very useful when done right, helping students learn in a clear and organized way. Happy teaching!

Lecture method of teaching FAQs

A1. In the lecture method , the teacher transmits the knowledge to a large group of students on the go..

A2. The limitations of this method are, lack of interactions, limited immediate feedback etc. 

A3.  Lecture methods can be used to introduce a new topic, provide background information, highlight important content etc. 

A4. Teachers can use multimedia, tell stories, ask questions, incorporate humor, and use real-world examples to make lectures more interesting. 

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Lecturing

Strategies for More Effective Lectures

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Lecturing is an old-fashioned instructional method of delivering information verbally. This model represents an oral tradition  that dates back to the Middle Ages. The term lecture came into use during the 14th century as a verb meaning "to read or deliver formal discourses." The person presenting a lecture during this time was often called a reader because they recited information from a book to students that recorded it verbatim.

There are many pros and cons of lecturing that cause much debate over whether this strategy should still be used today. Learn whether lecturing fits into the modern classroom and if it does, how.

What Is a Lecture?

During a typical lecture, an instructor stands before their class and presents information to students. Lecturing can go on for any amount of time on any topic. They are versatile in that sense but quite limited in others.

The negative reputation of lectures can be attributed to their non-transactional nature—they do not tend to allow for much discussion or other forms of student involvement. Lectures simply offer a way for teachers to carefully execute their teaching according to a precise plan. They do not assess learning, offer varied perspectives, differentiate instruction, or allow students to self-direct.

Lecturing Today

Because their disadvantages are now widely discussed, many wonder whether lectures still have a place in the modern teaching landscape. The answer is plain and simple: traditional lectures do not. There are a number of factors that contribute to a lecture's success, but lecturing is ultimately an outdated form of instructional delivery that does not benefit students.

Read about the advantages and disadvantages of traditional lecturing to understand why this teaching approach is in need of a remodel.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Traditional Lecturing

Lecturing, in the most traditional sense, holds more cons than pros.

Traditional lecturing offers a few distinct advantages that other teaching methods do not. Lectures are beneficial for these reasons:

Lectures are straightforward. Lectures allow teachers to deliver information to students as planned. This gives great control over what is taught and lets teachers be the sole source of information to avoid confusion.

Lectures are efficient. A well-rehearsed lecture can be presented quickly and planned ahead of time to fit into a certain schedule.

Lectures can be pre-recorded and recycled. Many teachers record their lectures ahead of time and even show lectures given by others. Khan academy videos and TED talks are examples of common educational lectures available to the public

There are many drawbacks to lecturing that make it nonideal. The following list includes disadvantageous features of traditional lectures:

Lectures are very taxing for students. In order for a student to get as much as possible from a lecture, they must take detailed notes . This skill must be taught and takes a lot of time to master. Most students don't know what they should take away from lectures and do not successfully learn the material.

Lectures are not engaging. Lectures are often long and monotonous, making it difficult for even the most dedicated students to engage. They cause students to quickly grow bored and tune out and they also don't leave room for questions, making confused students even more likely to shut down.

Lectures are teacher-centered. They do not bring students into the conversation to ask questions, debate ideas, or share valuable personal experiences. Lectures are built on a teacher's agenda only with almost no student inquiry or contribution. In addition, a teacher has no way of telling whether students are learning.

Lectures do not accommodate individual needs. Lectures allow for little to no differentiation. They follow a specific format of delivery that does not account for learning disabilities or other needs. Lectures leave many students feeling frustrated and confused.

Lectures cause students to rely on their teachers. The one-sided format of lectures often leads students to develop a dependency on their teachers. Students accustomed to lectures lack self-directed learning skills and are unable to teach themselves. This fails them because teaching students to learn is the very purpose of education in the first place.

How to Plan an Effective Lecture

Though standard lecturing has more or less become obsolete, that doesn't mean that lecturing can't be made more effective. With the help of technological advances and the latest, most productive teaching strategies, lectures can be revamped into much more meaningful teaching and learning experiences.

As with any other teaching practice in an instructional arsenal, teachers should exercise discretion and selectivity when deciding whether to lecture. After all, lecturing is only one tool out of many. For these reasons, lecturing should be used in moderation only when it is more appropriate than any other teaching method. To create the most effective lecture possible, keep these tips in mind.

Be Flexible

Lectures need to have a little wiggle room. Organization is critical but a well-planned lecture is only successful as long as it stays completely on track. Because of this, instructors must plan for any scenario and be open-minded when it comes time to lecture. If a student says or does something that changes your plans, go with it. Practice responsive teaching by listening to what your students are saying and adjusting to meet their needs in the moment.

Before a lecture even begins, decide exactly what it should accomplish. This is the case for any lesson and lectures are no exception. Set learning goals for a lecture outlining skills and knowledge that students should have when you are finished. With clear, action-directed goals in place, you don't have to worry if your lecture veers a little off-track. Let it go where it needs to go and use learning goals you've set to direct instruction no matter where a lecture ends up.

Build in Assessments

Once you've planned standards-aligned, highly specific learning targets, take the time to decide how you will check a student's progression toward them. You should have a way of determining whether each and every student is grasping the material you have delivered and a plan for following up with those that do not. A lecture, like any lesson, should not begin and end in a single day. Review what you have taught often and build lectures seamlessly into your curriculum for best results.

Plan Dynamic Lectures

A lecture should not bore your students. Incorporate multi-media learning experiences, visuals, activities, and educational games into your lecturing to maintain student interest and make your instruction more accessible. Make your students feel excited about what you are teaching and they will be more likely to learn. Additionally, always supplement your lecturing with guided and independent practice to let students try what you have taught for themselves. If you neglect to do this, your students might not understand a concept no matter how interesting your lecture was.

Provide Supports

One of the biggest flaws in the format of a traditional lecture is that it expects too much of students without supporting them at all. Note-taking is an especially demanding task. Teach your students to successfully take notes so that they don't spend each lecture stressing about recording every word you say and provide graphic organizers for them to take notes on. Finally, scaffold your instruction so that every student—regardless of background knowledge, learning disabilities, etc.—has a way to access information.

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[2023] What are Instructional Methods in Education? A Comprehensive Guide

• July 25, 2023
• Learning Styles

Are you curious about the various instructional methods used in education? Look no further! Our team at Teacher Strategies™ has compiled a comprehensive guide to help you understand and implement effective instructional methods in your classroom. From traditional approaches to modern strategies, we've got you covered. So, let's dive in and explore the world of instructional methods!

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Quick answer, quick tips and facts, instructional methods, useful links, reference links.

Instructional methods in education refer to the techniques and strategies used by teachers to deliver content and facilitate learning in the classroom. These methods can vary depending on the subject, grade level, and individual student needs. Some common instructional methods include lecture, discussion, cooperative learning, and hands-on activities. By employing a variety of instructional methods, teachers can engage students and promote deeper understanding.

• Instructional methods play a crucial role in student engagement and learning outcomes.
• Effective instructional methods should consider the diverse needs and learning styles of students.
• Technology can be integrated into instructional methods to enhance learning experiences.
• Instructional methods should align with educational goals and objectives.
• Professional development opportunities can help teachers refine their instructional methods.

In this section, we will explore various instructional methods commonly used in education. Each method offers unique benefits and considerations. Let's take a closer look!

Lecture Method

The lecture method is a traditional instructional approach where the teacher presents information to the students through a verbal presentation. While lectures can be informative and efficient for delivering content, they may not always engage students actively. To enhance the lecture method, teachers can incorporate multimedia resources, interactive elements, and opportunities for student participation.

• Efficient way to deliver information to a large group of students.
• Allows for the presentation of complex concepts and theories.
• Provides an opportunity for students to take notes and listen actively.
• May not engage all students or cater to different learning styles.
• Limited opportunities for student interaction and collaboration.
• Requires careful planning to ensure the lecture is engaging and effective.

Check out these lecture-friendly resources:

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Discussion Method

The discussion method promotes active student participation and critical thinking. During a discussion, students are encouraged to share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions on a given topic. The teacher acts as a facilitator, guiding the conversation and encouraging deeper analysis. Discussions can be conducted in small groups or as a whole class.

• Fosters critical thinking and analytical skills.
• Encourages active student participation and engagement.
• Allows for the exploration of multiple perspectives and viewpoints.
• Requires effective classroom management to ensure all students have an opportunity to participate.
• May require additional time for preparation and facilitation.
• Some students may feel uncomfortable speaking in front of the whole class.

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Cooperative Learning Method

Cooperative learning involves students working together in small groups to achieve a common goal. This method promotes collaboration, communication, and teamwork. Students are assigned specific roles within the group, and each member is responsible for contributing to the overall success of the task or project.

• Enhances social skills and teamwork abilities.
• Provides opportunities for peer teaching and learning.
• Fosters a sense of community and belonging in the classroom.
• Requires careful grouping of students to ensure effective collaboration.
• May require additional time for planning and monitoring group work.
• Some students may struggle with the dynamics of working in a group.

Check out these cooperative learning resources:

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Hands-on Activities Method

Hands-on activities involve students actively engaging with materials and manipulating objects to deepen their understanding of a concept or skill. This method is particularly effective for subjects such as science, math, and art. Hands-on activities can include experiments, simulations, art projects, and role-playing.

• Enhances student engagement and motivation.
• Promotes experiential learning and long-term retention of knowledge.
• Appeals to different learning styles and preferences.
• Requires adequate resources and materials.
• May require additional time for preparation and clean-up.
• Some activities may be challenging to implement in certain classroom settings.

Check out these hands-on activity resources:

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What are instructional methods for teaching?

Instructional methods for teaching refer to the various techniques and strategies used by teachers to deliver content and facilitate learning in the classroom. These methods can include lectures, discussions, cooperative learning, hands-on activities, and more.

What is an example of an instructional method?

An example of an instructional method is the lecture method, where the teacher presents information to the students through a verbal presentation. Another example is the discussion method, where students engage in conversations to share their thoughts and opinions on a given topic.

What are the different types of instructional methods?

There are several different types of instructional methods, including:

• Lecture method
• Discussion method
• Cooperative learning method
• Hands-on activities method
• Problem-based learning method
• Inquiry-based learning method
• Direct instruction method
• Flipped classroom method

What are instructional methods and strategies?

Instructional methods and strategies are techniques used by teachers to deliver content and facilitate learning in the classroom. These methods and strategies can be tailored to meet the needs of individual students and promote engagement and understanding.

How can I choose the right instructional method for my classroom?

Choosing the right instructional method for your classroom involves considering factors such as the subject matter, grade level, and individual student needs. It's important to select methods that align with your educational goals and objectives while catering to the diverse learning styles of your students.

Instructional methods play a vital role in creating engaging and effective learning experiences for students. By incorporating a variety of methods such as lectures, discussions, cooperative learning, and hands-on activities, teachers can cater to the diverse needs and learning styles of their students. Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, so be open to experimenting with different methods to find what works best for you and your students.

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Marti is a seasoned educator and strategist with a passion for fostering inclusive learning environments and empowering students through tailored educational experiences. With her roots as a university tutor—a position she landed during her undergraduate years—Marti has always been driven by the joy of facilitating others' learning journeys.

Holding a Bachelor's degree in Communication alongside a degree in Social Work, she has mastered the art of empathetic communication, enabling her to connect with students on a profound level. Marti’s unique educational background allows her to incorporate holistic approaches into her teaching, addressing not just the academic, but also the emotional and social needs of her students.

Throughout her career, Marti has developed and implemented innovative teaching strategies that cater to diverse learning styles, believing firmly that education should be accessible and engaging for all. Her work on the Teacher Strategies site encapsulates her extensive experience and dedication to education, offering readers insights into effective teaching methods, classroom management techniques, and strategies for fostering inclusive and supportive learning environments.

As an advocate for lifelong learning, Marti continuously seeks to expand her knowledge and skills, ensuring her teaching methods are both evidence-based and cutting edge. Whether through her blog articles on Teacher Strategies or her direct engagement with students, Marti remains committed to enhancing educational outcomes and inspiring the next generation of learners and educators alike.

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Lecture Method of teaching, Definition, Advantages & Disadvantages

Definition of lecture method of teaching.

Lecture method of teaching is the oldest teaching method applied in educational institution. This teaching method is one way channel of communication of information. Students’ involvement in this teaching method is just to listen and sometimes pen down some notes if necessary during the lecture , combine the information and organized it.

One of the problems in this method is to grab the attention of students in class room. Another big problem is that many students in the class cannot follow the theme. Learning has a strong influence on method of teaching.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Lecture Method

Advantages of lecture method of teaching.

• In this teaching method a large amount the topics can be covered in a single class period.
• Using of this method exclude the using of any equipment or Lab.
• Learning material is not required.
• Student listening skills developed.
• Logical arrangement of the material in order to present it orally
• Help to learn languages 

Disadvantages of Lecture Method of Teaching

• Psychologically this method is acceptable because individuals are not alike. Teacher delivers the same lecture to both students without recognizing the individual differences.
• Learning is an active process thus study should encourage to actively participate in the class room instead of just listening the teacher.
• Language using in the lecture is above the standard of the students. They are not able get full advantage of the lecture.
• Lecture are often forgotten by the students soon after while learning is retained if activities are experienced.
• Attention level is not the same while student listening the lecture.

Learning is not a simple process. The pouring process is educationally not perfect or recommended for secondary level students. At this level it is difficult for student to pick new concepts using lecture method of teaching. They actually are meaningful, active and interesting experiences or activity in the class.

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The Corps is changing the way Marines learn, and how their instructors -- charged with preparing them for the fleet -- teach.

Yes, that includes getting rid of "death by PowerPoint" and "sage on the stage," popular military colloquialisms describing an old way of instruction. The Marine Corps is ditching them in favor of what it calls "outcomes-based" learning, according to officials at the Modern Day Marine Expo in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

The initiative, headed by the service's Training and Education Command, is called Project Triumph. It's been in the works for years, and means the service will focus on the individual Marine's ability to learn rather than cramming instruction into their heads, whether they understand it or not.

Read Next: Air Force Starts to Fly Some Ospreys Again Following Crash that Killed 8 Airmen in Japan

"Instead of teaching them what to think, we're teaching them how to think," Col. Karl Arbogast, the director of policy and standards for Training and Education Command, told a crowd at the exposition. "And in the process, we're making them better decision-makers, or adaptable -- and we're able to deal with changing and challenging environments depending upon the job that they've been asked to do."

Outcomes-based learning has been part of American education for decades . According to the Department of Education, the learning method focuses on the end state for the student, where they can actually demonstrate results of the education they've received.

That differs from traditional methods in a few ways, according to the department. In outcomes-based learning, time is meant to be a resource that can be flexible, depending on the needs of the teacher or student. The curriculum is also based around the end state, rather than the sometimes rigid steps meant to meet that end state.

The Marine Corps, for its part, wants to use this method to create more mentally agile Marines, specifically ones who can solve problems and make decisions on their own, "faster and sooner" than what previous instruction has offered, according to the initiative.

An example Arbogast gave centered on the Infantry Marine Course, or IMC. Instead of having most of the students sitting through classroom instruction and then going to the field, the school changed the ratio of students to instructors so that they can learn in squad-sized groups, a more personal setting. Specifically, one sergeant or staff sergeant was in charge of teaching a group of about 14 Marines.

Arbogast said those Marines would be required to study material before instruction in what he called "self-guided" learning. They would then bring that knowledge to their groups, helping inform the instructor on what they were able to retain on their own before hitting the field for practical applications.

It would be there, in the field, testing those "outcomes" that Marines would develop close-knit relationships, learn about leadership and work together -- skills they would carry into their line units, Arbogast said.

The initiative also takes instructors to task, too -- changing the way they teach to adapt to a "learner-centric" method of education.

"Not every instructor is of the same quality -- not as good in areas but there's some areas that they're better at," Arbogast said. "Just like any student who shows up, sometimes simple things ... maybe they'll take to right away, and other things become a bit more challenging for them, depending on the individual."

Because of that, Marine instructors have to be mentally agile, too, specifically "being able to, as an instructor, [to] recognize that every student is going to learn things a little bit differently, and being able to adapt that for the individual," he said.

Officials said that the old way of teaching, the PowerPoint instructor model, results in a "passive" learning style that does not lead to real, true retention of information.

An example they pointed to was teaching land navigation, a fundamental skill in the military, in which Marines can consume material focused on that skill prior to coming into the classroom, be guided by an instructor based on that pre-loaded knowledge, then take it to the field for practical applications.

"What we know from research is when a learner learns in that passive environment, they're going to go away, and within a few short months, all of that data is gone," Timothy Heck, the deputy officer in charge of the Marine Corps Center for Learning and Faculty Development, told Military.com on Wednesday.

"Whereas in a new methodology, where the learner is directly involved in their own learning, and developing the actual lesson ... during the facilitation, they're going to retain that information far longer down the road," Heck said.

Training and Education Command also created new military occupational specialties, 095X or formal school instructors, which are designated as "exceptional" MOSs -- outside of the Marine's primary job -- so the service can keep better tabs on who is qualified to teach.

Arbogast told reporters Tuesday that the initiative was bolstered by his own experience as a student throughout his career in the Marine Corps.

"It wasn't that long ago when people were instructing me, every teacher that was up there, they didn't care whether I understood the material, what my baseline was, where I had started from," he said. "They didn't care; they just gave the class and walked.

"We're improving so much more than that," he said.

Project Triumph is being developed in conjunction with two other Training and Education Command initiatives, Project Trident and Project Tripoli. Project Trident focuses on supporting Marines in building "close kill webs" in contested environments; Tripoli looks to embed live, virtual and "constructive" assets into exercises across the force.

Together, officials said they make up how Marines train, why Marines train, and where Marines train, respectively.

Related: Marines Field New Technology that Can Measure Bullet Trajectory, Simulated Wounds in California Exercise

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The use of lectures: effective pedagogy or seeds scattered on the wind?

• Open access
• Published: 12 March 2022
• Volume 85 , pages 283–299, ( 2023 )

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• Colin Loughlin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9240-2565 1 &
• Åsa Lindberg-Sand   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0860-6723 1  

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This case study of large-class teaching at a UK university focuses on the place of large-scale lectures in academics’ approaches to teaching, their use by students in their studies, and their relationship to institutional quality assurance policies. The case is a second-year module comprised of 180 students, and it includes two-hour lectures as the primary mode of teaching. The data is drawn from a range of sources including observations, interviews, focus groups, institutional documentation, and a student survey. Observations revealed largely transmissive lectures with little student interaction. The analytic framework of constructive alignment and outcome-based education is used to examine the promoted educational values and the practice experienced by students. The results are further explored in relation to two texts celebrating 50 years since publication: Donald Bligh’s What’s the Use of Lectures and Benson Snyder’s The Hidden Curriculum , Both highlight the dissonance of espoused approaches to teaching, and the realities of large-class environments. While the institutional literature foregrounds student-centred, ‘active learning’ approaches, the teacher-centred practice observed would have been very familiar to Bligh and Snyder; the principles of constructive alignment were visible only at the policy level. The implicit reward mechanisms of the hidden curriculum ensure that the majority of students succeed and are satisfied with the educational offering. The students who attended the lectures appeared to enjoy them and indicated that the primary benefits are the structure offered by live lectures and the support of the peer networks which develop as a result of attendance.

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Introduction

Two seminal books in higher education (HE) celebrated their half-century in 2021: Donald Bligh’s What’s the Use of Lectures and Benson Snyder’s The Hidden Curriculum. These two books have made a substantial contribution to the development of educational discourse and theory since their publication. While Bligh remains an advocate of the (proportionate) use of the lecture method, he is scathing of the casual overreliance on transmissive lecture styles often observed, arguing for smaller class sizes, variety, and interaction in teaching sessions. Snyder posits that there is a dissonance between the formal curriculum described in terms of a scholarly pursuit of knowledge and an informal ‘hidden’ curriculum, which centres around the implicit expectations of staff and students. He claims the hidden curriculum can foster instrumental behaviours in students: ‘The classic example is the professor who says “Be creative” and rewards rote memory’ (Snyder, 1971 , p. 155). It can, he claims, result in short-term, assessment-driven learning, which has been shown to impair students’ (long-term) performance in real-world settings.

Bligh retains a focus on what happens in the classroom, whereas Snyder takes a more holistic view of institutional structures which influence the beliefs and behaviour of academics and students. While Bligh and Snyder’s frames of reference differ, the centrality of the student in learning and teaching is a theme common to both. Traces of their influence can be found in the policies of present-day HE which inform institutional, national, and international, quality assurance (QA) processes. A more contemporary influence of QA processes is outcome-based education (OBE) and particularly constructive alignment (CA). Loughlin et al. ( 2021 ) hold that CA operates at two levels within HE, firstly, internally as a qualitative tool to enhance the coherence of the educational offering and support the process of student learning; and secondly, externally, as a product-oriented means of audit and control of curricula by policymakers. They argue that CA used in QA processes can create an illusory appearance of student-centred approaches to learning and teaching, often misrepresenting the reality of practice. This paper is an empirical study that relates teaching practice to institutional rhetoric.

Transmissive lectures, in which students primarily listen to the lecturer and take notes, remain commonplace in HE (e.g. Gynnild et al., 2021 ). This case-study of large-class teaching at a UK university provides an opportunity to examine contemporary approaches to teaching in relation to the ideas discussed in the historical texts. The research looks at the totality of the module, with an emphasis on the place of non-mandatory large-scale lectures within it. The object was to understand the perceptions and expectations of the students who chose to attend them and how they use lectures in their learning. The analysis and discussion integrate findings from the case study with the historical texts and more contemporary theoretical perspectives.

Three core elements are considered in this paper: the study data, CA as curriculum theory, and the historical texts. These are discussed at two levels, firstly the institutional or structural level and secondly at the practice level (see Table 1 for a visual representation). It is the relationship between these elements and levels that form the article’s underlying structure. That is, how the institutional documentation is informed by the QA requirements; if/how that translates into classroom practice; and to what extent the Bligh and Snyder texts retain explanatory power of the (contemporary) observed phenomena.

The theoretical perspectives below are followed by an overview of the case and the study methodology. The findings are then explored in a thematic analysis of the data, and the discussion in relation to the texts mentioned.

Theoretical perspectives

This section locates large-class transmissive lectures within selected educational literature. There is a great deal of overlap between the historical and more contemporary texts outlined below, all of them characterising aspects of students’ study habits, at least partly, as a reaction to lecturers’ approaches to teaching. They are also—implicitly or explicitly constructivist—describing student’s learning as individual, prior knowledge dependent; and learning itself as an active, constructive, and goal-oriented process.

At the structural level then, the OBE movement is significant for this study because of its integration into UK and European QA frameworks, most notably through CA. John Biggs developed CA in the 1990s and fully articulated it in his 1999 book Teaching for quality learning at university : ‘A good teaching system aligns teaching method and assessment to the learning activities stated in the objectives, so that all aspects of the system are in accord in supporting appropriate student learning. This system is called constructive alignment, based as it is on the twin principles of constructivism in learning and alignment in teaching’ (Biggs, 1999 , p. 11).

Biggs and Bligh do not imply lectures are never appropriate, rather that, an over-reliance on transmissive lectures is less effective than many alternative approaches. CA is archetypically student-centred in its approach, stressing the importance of carefully designed learning activities. ‘Lecturing is logistically convenient [however] the learning that takes place in lecturing is demonstrably worse than in other teaching situations’ (Biggs & Tang, 2011 , p. 157). Biggs is practice-focused and intended CA as an educational tool to enhance learning through student-centred, activity-based approaches to learning and teaching. He is critical of its use by policymakers as a means of audit and control through QA processes. It is this dual perspective of CA that is considered in this study.

At a practice level, Ausubel contends that meaningful learning is possible from expository verbal instruction, but that misapplication in practice led to educational theorists dismissing it ‘disdainfully as an archaic remnant of discredited educational tradition’ (Ausubel, 2000 , p. 6). There is little other published empirical research in defence of traditional lectures. As Bligh points out, that is likely to be because most studies are using lectures as the benchmark against which favoured alternative formats are measured. Even where lectures perform well in comparative studies, it is more likely to be perceived as a shortcoming of the alternative than the success of the lecture. In a paper that draws on Goffman’s Forms of Talk , Fulford and Mahon argue a philosophical defence of lectures, which, while persuasive, is metaphoric and aspirational. One could imagine a hard-pressed academic facing two-hundred students on a rainy Thursday morning struggling with the concept that the ‘lecture is the site for, and the possibility of, the passionate utterance’ (Fulford & Mahon, 2020 , p. 373).

There is no commonly accepted definition of a lecture, ‘few rules’, and ‘no more agreement about what is a good lecture than there is about good music’ (Bligh, 1972 , p. 9). What’s the Use of lectures? has a practice focus as it was originally penned with the aim of helping new lecturers (citations in this article are from the 3rd edition published in 1972 and the American edition of 2000). The research evidence presented in the first few chapters is damning; lectures performed poorly (in terms of students’ assessment scores) in almost every metric apart from knowledge transmission, where they were only as effective as other methods. Bligh’s findings are that lectures are ‘relatively ineffective’ for inspiring interest in the topic, promoting thought, changing attitudes, or developing behavioural skills.

The psychology sections deal with issues of motivation, attention spans, and memory. He helped popularise the idea of the 20-minute attention span for students in lectures. Interestingly (in a world currently forced into online teaching), when mediated via TV screens, attention spans were ‘much worse’ than live lectures (Bligh, 2000 , p. 53). While concluding that lectures alone are ‘rarely adequate’ (ibid, p. 251), he remains a proponent of the lecture method and two-thirds of the book is devoted to helping lecturers improve the quality of their lectures. The final sections of the book promote active and discursive approaches to classroom teaching.

The Hidden Curriculum was based on research carried out by Snyder at MIT during the 1960s. He sought to articulate, what he sensed was a disconnect, between the espoused approaches to university education and the reality that he observed. The scholarly pursuit of knowledge often overwhelmed with an overloaded curriculum containing too much assessment, commonly resulting in instrumental approaches to learning. He contributes to the discourse of the relationship between teachers’ approaches to teaching and students’ response to it. The themes explored resonate strongly with this case study, especially as Snyder’s research involved academically able students, and addressed large class sizes.

Drawing on some similar themes to Snyder, Trowler’s teaching and learning regimes (TLRs) provide a framework for understanding the relationship between teaching cultures and student learning. TLRs help frame the relationships between the institution, teachers, and students described in this study. Trowler describes how power relations, implicit theories of learning and teaching, conventions, tacit assumptions, and discursive repertoires (amongst other things) influence approaches to teaching, which can, in turn, influence students’ approaches to learning (Trowler, 2019 ). That is, teacher-centred/transmissive approaches are associated with surface approaches to learning by students, whereas student-centred teaching is associated with deep approaches (Marton & Säljö, 1976 ; Trigwell & Prosser, 2020 ). Snyder uses the terms instrumental and expressive to describe the same phenomena. Surface and deep are broad-brush descriptions of students’ approaches to learning, linked to extrinsic motivation (e.g., exam-focused) or intrinsic motivation (interested in the subject for its own sake). It is stressed in the literature that these attributes are context-dependent and not fixed dispositions of individual students.

The above theoretical perspectives form part of a complex and multi-faceted understanding of the relationships between teaching and learning; they are not explored in detail in this paper but provided as context for the analysis and discussion which follow.

The case is a semester-long module (course) equivalent to 7.5 ECTS credits which took place at a pre-1992, research-intensive, Higher Education Institution (HEI) in England between October 2018 and February 2019. It is a compulsory module for second-year students on a programme in the faculty of health sciences and builds on a similarly themed first-year module. A high tariff (grade) is required for entry onto the (prestigious) programme, and places are limited to 180. The module is split into two self-contained parts: a research methods section which comprises five two-hour seminars and culminating in a piece of groupwork which accounts for 25% of the final grade. The primary focus of this study is the other part, which consists of a series of eleven two-hour lectures, these relate to an exam that accounts for 75% of the final grade. The exam is made up of 30 min of multiple-choice questions and a one-hour essay question; the exam marks are weighted 50/50 for each element.

For context, the University documentation produced is clear about what type of teaching students should expect: for instance, the University’s corporate strategy talks of ‘innovative teaching’ and the education strategy espouses ‘active learning’. The institution commits to ‘teaching practices which are strongly informed by up-to-date educational research. [We] explicitly recognise and reward excellent teaching’. The module descriptor reflects the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) requirements founded on CA and LOs.

The collaborative ‘research methods’ element and associated coursework account for two of the three LOs, all four of the ‘attributes developed’, and three of the four ‘teaching methods’ described in the module documentation. The lecture series and exam account for only two of the four ‘attributes’ and a single learning outcome (to ‘understand and critically reflect’ on the topic), which ‘gives students the basic knowledge on’ the topic area.

The module leader is a senior academic who had been leading this module for eighteen months (and takes one lecture); the module itself was validated by a predecessor several years previously. The module leader and four lecturers share the teaching; the lecturer interviewed taught five of the eleven lectures. She had been a lecturer for three years and had recently completed the institution’s teacher training programme.

The lectures were conducted in a 200-seat raked (tiered) fixed-seat lecture theatre and took place between 11am and 1 pm every Thursday during one semester. At the start of the semester, there were 179 students registered on the module, 169 completed it.

The research questions reflect the tensions that can be seen developing between the formal curriculum represented in the institutional literature and the informal curriculum which confronts the challenges of large-class teaching.

Research questions

How do students make use of the lecture?

How do students and staff understand the role of the lecture?

How does the lecture series relate to the ‘formal curriculum’ described in the institutional documentation?

Methodology

The rationale for choosing this particular module were its credentials as a common case (Yin, 2009 ). The course handbook describes the lecture element as: ‘standard lecture format with interactive elements’; the cohort size falls within the mid-range at the University and the 200-seat lecture hall is the most common size of fixed seat venues (the mean capacity across all raked-seat lecture theatres at the University is 154). The discipline is obviously the most contentious point for claiming a ‘common case’; however, observations across a range of distinct disciplines, in the specific context of a large-scale lecture, suggest that disciplines have more in common than separates them. Comparisons of ‘effective teaching do not vary markedly across the academic disciplines’ (Dolnicar, 2005 , p. 4). The major variables which affect student engagement with the lecture, such as personality, enthusiasm, and structure, operate independently of the discipline (e.g. Bligh, 2000 ).

The case study methodology was chosen as suitable to explore a complex social practice enclosed in a module and framed by formal curricular structures, and draws upon data from a number of sources:

Observations: Seven of the eleven lectures were observed (including all five instructors who taught the module), and lecture recordings of the remaining four were viewed.

Staff interviews and focus groups: The data collected from the two staff interviews (the module leader and primary lecturer) and two student focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim, they covered a lot of ground; in this analysis however, the focus on large-scale lectures has been retained.

Institutional documentation: Institutional policy, syllabus, and module guides were gathered and analysed.

Student survey: All students enrolled in the module were invited to take part in an online survey relating to notetaking practices, engagement with lecture recordings, and attendance rates. The online survey was completed by 100 of the 169 students who completed the module. Students were incentivised to take part with ‘lab tokens’ which contribute to extra-curricular credits. The survey and VLE data will be explored more fully in a forthcoming article on attendance; in this paper, it is used only in relation to the statistical correlation with exam performance and self-reported attendance.

The first focus group (quotes labelled FG1) took place shortly after the module ended; it consisted of five students (two international). The topics covered ranged from reasons for attendance, note-taking behaviour, and their use of lecture recordings. The second focus group (labelled FG2) took place one year later and picked up on emergent themes from the first. It was conducted to explore what students valued about live lectures in more detail; it comprised of four different students from the same cohort (three international), who were now in their final semester of the final year. The cohort was predominantly female and included a large proportion of international students. The students who took part in the focus groups received gift vouchers to compensate them for their time.

Ethical approval for this research was obtained from the university where the study took place prior to the data collection. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006 ), was used to identify patterns and themes across the data. After familiarisation with the data, the initial codes generated from the separate data sources included anonymity; assessment; motivation; expectations; self-consciousness; anxiety and enjoyment; and the status quo. The iterative process of thematic analysis, which combines the initial coding into emergent categories, resulted in the following themes:

Filling the pail: content acquisition

Isolated teachers and anonymous students, normalising uncertainty: peer networks, loose coupling: lectures like seeds scattered on the wind.

These themes are reflected in the findings below, with accompanying textual analysis and supporting evidence.

This module has been running successfully for several years (the programme consistently ranking top 30 in the UK) and there is a pervading sense that the module leader perceives his role as largely bureaucratic. As the current caretaker of a successful module, he sees neither the scope nor the need to change the delivery of the module. The module evaluation comes in at ‘around 4-ish [out of 5] depending on the cohort […] there is no area for concern regarding this’. He specifically does not see the scale of the lectures as problematic: ‘whether I deliver this content to a hundred or a hundred and eighty is not a big difference’. He stressed the autonomy of both students and teaching staff in relation to the lectures. The issue of attendance is ‘never discussed’ at a programme or module level. Attendance is not monitored, and the students are free to attend lectures or not, ‘as long as [they] do not complain about not knowing something that has [been covered in the lecture] it’s absolutely up to them’. Attendance at the (non-compulsory) lectures ranged between 35% and 46% of the cohort, decreasing noticeably towards the end of the semester.

The following extract from the lecture observations helps to set the scene for the lecture series:

The two-hour-long lectures took place between October and January, the temperature in the hall was often on the cool side, most people were wearing sweaters, and a few kept on their outdoor coats. The hall itself is windowless, with just ten seats either side of the aisle, and ten rows deep. On my third visit to the steeply tiered lecture hall for this series of lectures, I took my usual place, off to one side in the back row of the fixed, high-backed seats. The podium appears distant from here, and there is a large projected display on the wall behind it. The rows are narrow, and they have fold-out tables coming from the seat in front, rather like an aeroplane tray-table, just big enough to accommodate a laptop. A young woman came into the hall and sat a few seats away from me in the back row. Before the lecture commenced, she put her tray-table down, laid her head on it and went to sleep. She remained that way for the entire two hours. Observation number 3

From the observations carried out, all five lecturers presented a largely transmissive lecture with the occasional question posed to the students. These questions were regularly greeted by the majority of students staring at their shoes until the moment passed. All the lectures had a break near the halfway point for ten or fifteen minutes. The break was often preceded by a two-minute small-group discussion question; the results of these discussions were rarely followed-up with a plenary conversation. Although an uninvited question from students was not observed during the lecture itself, in the break and afterwards, the lecturer generally had a queue of students to speak to.

The module leader said that the lectures are positioned as an introduction to topics and there is no expectation that students will have done any pre-reading. Individual lectures are ‘self-contained’, and while there are links between ‘certain’ lectures, there is no ‘narrative running through all lectures’. He continued: ‘I expect a lecture mainly to introduce a topic to students, to get basic concepts set in students, but mainly to spark interest to do their own further reading and work in the other 85% […] of the time they should spend on the module’.

Each lecture was exclusively devoted to the week’s topic, which related to a chapter in the course textbook. The textbook had 26 chapters (topic areas), 10 of which were covered in lectures, and the students were explicitly told that the exam questions were ‘only’ taken from the topics ‘covered’ in the lectures. All five lecturers recorded their sessions and used lecture slides (which were made available a few days before each lecture). Most students had their laptops open with the lecture slides visible, and there were regular flurries of keyboard activity, although not the consistent typing throughout the lecture which would indicate very comprehensive notes.

Overall, the students stayed on task; there were occasions when Facebook would pop up on laptop screens or mobile phones would start appearing. From time-to-time, conversations would break out while the lecturer was still talking. However, the atmosphere tended to be respectful.

Self-reported attendance at lectures was not correlated to a statistically significant level with the exam scores. This is surprising given the emphasis placed by teaching staff on the direct relationship between the two. There was a modest significant positive correlation with lecture recording views ( r (167) = 0.072, p-value  < 0.001); this correlation applied almost equally to those students who indicated in the survey that they did not attend live lectures regularly. It seems unlikely that students attending 22 hours of lectures gain little or nothing from them. Although, as the module leader pointed out, these lectures represent just 15% of the learning hours allocated for the module, therefore, private study, review, and revision are always likely to be of greater consequence to student outcomes. However, the exam content and its relationship with the lectures were not examined as part of this study, and therefore, any further attempt to explain the disconnect would be speculative.

It was noticeable that both staff and students spoke almost exclusively in terms of ‘content’ when discussing the lectures; lecturers ‘delivering’ it, and students clamorous for it. Attitudes developed markedly in the third year of study; however, the first- and second-year were mainly perceived as periods of content consumption: ‘I think you know, it needs to be engaging and there should be a discussion, but also you do just need content, you need to get that knowledge and maybe there isn’t necessarily the time to be chatting about one idea in-depth and really picking it apart for half an hour, because you don’t really know anything and there’s a lot to learn’ (FG2_F1).

Despite the module documentation stating that there are ‘interactive elements’ to the lectures, the students view was, ‘definitely, the majority is just the lecturer speaking’ (FG1_F3). Talking about approaches to teaching, the module leader said that ‘interactive teaching is encouraged’, although this is in an informal and unspecified way. Guidance on teaching approaches is given to lecturers only if sought. He contrasts his own ‘hyperactive’ lecture style which involves ‘running around the lecture theatre […] up the stairs […] so that they get a change in perspective’, with those lecturers who just ‘stay behind the computer’.

The lecturer acknowledges that there is a ‘big push to try and make things kind of interactive but I feel that’s virtually impossible with that number [of students…] 80/90% of it is just me talking […] I don’t really see any way round that’. She continued, saying that the physical space of the lecture hall was limiting, which combined with the volume of material that they had to go through, and the ‘huge two-hour long blocks’, were ‘not really highly conducive to learning [but] the students keep coming to the lectures if you’re an engaging speaker’.

For some students, their relationship with the content was characterised by rote learning for reproduction in the exam. One student attends lectures, ‘because the slides just don’t have enough content on to like answer any of the exam questions’; and another uses lecture recordings as, ‘it really helps me with memorising stuff’. The lecturer implicitly recognises rote learning among students when she complains that: ‘some people scribble down everything you say which is not ideal [because] some random metaphor or something that you’ve given like appears in about ten different exam scripts’.

The module leader and the lecturer then, appear to be focused on the content. There is little mention of what the students do; the descriptions are teacher-centred; delivering content ‘to’ students, ‘getting basic concepts set in students’, putting ‘your all into the content’.

The compartmentalised division of workload creates issues of ownership for the teaching staff on this module. The ‘research methods’ coursework element of the module is entirely self-contained, and the lectures comprise of stand-alone topics. The module was created and validated some years ago, by staff who are no longer at the University. The module leader assigns the lectures but has no oversight of the lectures themselves; the four lecturers involved are responsible only for their lectures and a proportion of the exam questions and marking. The lecturer said that, while ‘in theory you are given a lot of free rein […] in reality there’s a set text that students are using’ plus existing exam and multiple-choice questions, diverging from the previous year’s content would mean a great deal more work in terms of preparation and re-writing exam questions. There appears to be little collaboration between teaching staff in planning the module. The lecturer said that she used to go to the introductory lectures each semester just so that she got an understanding of what the students are likely to expect, as if that were her only source of information. Each interaction is a cog in a (fairly efficient) machine, but no one appears to take ownership of the machine. As a result, there is a disconnect with the students; most interactions are at arm’s length and largely anonymous. Questions are answered, but no relationships formed. Both staff and students describe a situation that is far more transactional than aspirational.

Teaching the large cohort first- and second-year classes regularly falls to more junior colleagues in the department, and in response to a question about training or preparation for teaching in large lecture theatres, the lecturer exclaimed that she had: ‘None! None at all. Sometimes you don’t even get the previous [slides] which is really hard’. Regarding time to prepare for lectures she thinks that lecturers ‘have good intentions, but you end up re-running [last year’s content]’. She said that due to workload allocation (two hours preparation per two-hour lecture) and the priority given to research in their career progression some lecturers, ‘begrudge the teaching quite a lot of the time, which is a shame’. She added later that, ‘[I think it’s sometimes] really difficult for the students […] to understand why their lecturers are terrible’. Prompted to expand on what ‘terrible lectures’ entailed, she said, ‘there are lecturers who don’t think about the two-hour block […] But worst is probably when it’s just incomprehensible, they don’t make any effort to make it accessible […] some of the slides are awful as well […] I think a lecture really needs shaping, to be in segments, to be a theme, to have focus, to link together’.

That aside, she enjoys the experience, ‘I’m a bit strange in that I quite like it [ laughs ] I don’t know if I’m a secret exhibitionist or something […] it’s like being on stage’. Acknowledging that the interaction with students is limited, she said ‘when I was a student […] I really didn’t mind just listening’, if it was put across in an interesting way. This lecturer was an accomplished student at a top university, who enjoyed transmissive lectures. Her ambition is to replicate that experience for her students.

The module leader said: ‘we try to encourage [students] to use the social situation of the learning because they can directly discuss certain issues they are unclear about, either with their neighbour or in class or even ask a question, so we encourage also questions during lectures’. The students’ perception is that although ‘they want people to ask questions more […] I feel like it would be weird. When lecturers [try to] involve people, I feel like everyone backs up because they’re not used to it and they don’t like it and they do feel self-conscious, so I feel like breaking the dynamic would be quite hard’ (FG1_ F1). ‘I suppose the alternative is if everybody [asks a question], but if 200 people put their hands up just logistically that doesn’t work, so like although you say anybody is free to ask any question, I think everybody kind of knows that you’re not’ (FG1_ F4). The students from the focus groups indicated that they are quite contented being invisible and anonymous in the crowd.

The social dynamic within a cohort is also one which features in the data and the literature. Most students sat in small groups around the lecture hall. Asked why they posed questions to the lecturer in the break rather than in the lecture, FG2_ F1 replied, ‘well, I guess part of it is just being self-conscious, you wonder if that’s a question that a lot of people would have’. She was mindful that questions can take up time when there is a lot of material to get through ‘because there’s like 70 slides and two hours, so I just feel like I don’t want to take up like a couple of minutes of 200 people’s time if it’s potentially just me or a handful of people that have that question […] I worry that it’s too disruptive to everybody else, I’m not sure if they would be getting much out of it’. Others were also reluctant to ask questions in the lecture: ‘It’s probably because I’m self-conscious and like I might feel so stupid, like asking something that […] everybody understands [I wouldn’t want to say] “oh I don’t get it, can you repeat it”, like so I prefer going to the lecturer and asking personally’ (FG2_ F2). A recurrent pattern among students is that they feel they are the only one in the hall not to grasp the content, and therefore do not want to expose themselves by asking for clarification.

Fellow students provide support: ‘I think for me it’s […] the peer network, like I have friends that I’ll sit with in my lectures […] and I think it’s nice to have that lecture where even in the break […] even if you’re not going up and asking questions you can sort of turn to each other and be like, “did you understand that?” And I think it’s nice either way because if my friends understand it then great because maybe they can explain it to me in a slightly different way, and if they look back and they go, “no, I didn’t get it either, it all went over my head”, then it’s kind of comforting, in that you’re not the only one who has no clue what just happened [ laughs ] if everybody’s really stuck, it’s, you know, okay, “well let’s try and like figure [it out]”. If one person looks it up or gets the answer or figures it out, or has a new way of looking at it, they’d be like “guys, I think I’ve got it” [or] if we all have the same question, one person might go up to the front [and come back with the answer] I think it’s something like it’s the community of like learning […] it doesn’t feel so daunting when […] you have people to like bounce off of, or like if you look round and you can see other confused faces and you’re like, it’s not just me, it’s nice, and I think what I get out of like being physically in lectures, I think it’s just the reassurance that […] you can have people in the exact same position who get it and they can explain it or you can just be in this boat of confusion together’ (FG2_F4). ‘When everyone has the same doubt as you, it’s like a sense of inclusivity, you’re not on your own with that doubt’ (FG2_F1).

This sense that it is okay not to immediately grasp difficult concepts (as long as you’re not alone) came up a number of times and illustrates a valuable social aspect to lecture attendance to which the module leader alluded.

For staff, students, and the Institution, large-scale transmissive lectures are synonymous with higher education. They are normalised to the extent that they are invisible, appearing to require little reflection as to why they exist or what purpose they serve. Once individual lectures are ‘delivered’, teaching staff have no feedback mechanism to tell them how, or if, students benefit from them. What the students choose to do with the content is left to them. The staff have no knowledge of who attends the lectures, and for those who do attend, how they use the material presented in their learning.

It should be remembered that less than fifty percent of the cohort attend the lectures; however, those that do generally feel that attendance contributes to their learning, a contribution that is a little amorphous in nature. In terms of the lecture’s impact on their learning, FG1_P1 said ‘I think it’s like an indirect effect, like your lectures contribute to your notes which contribute to your learning. Because if I hadn’t gone to the lectures, I wouldn’t have got such high-quality notes, and then that would have affected my overall learning for like revision, exams and assignments’. FG1_P2 felt ‘lonely’ and ‘weird’ when she had missed lectures and said that they gave her the structure she needed to organise her learning: ‘Like once I missed two lectures in a week and I was like I feel stuck, like I’m not learning anything new’. FG1_P4 said, ‘I just feel better about myself if I go to the lecture. It motivates me to take more detailed notes and do the reading – like a self-perpetuating cycle. It all starts with the lecture’. FG1_P4 said that her notes were better from lectures she attended in person and that ‘if the lecture hasn’t really been clear I don’t really want to go and find out for myself’.

The students from both focus groups were unanimously in favour of lecture recordings (Panopto) as were the lecturer and module leader, although rarely as a replacement for live lectures: ‘I feel like Panopto [is not] as direct, and I don’t learn as much from Panopto, I have to be talking to people, interacting, and listening first-hand, like to really take the information in, [the recording] just doesn’t go in my mind the same way’ (FG2_F1). FG2_F2 responded: ‘I have the opposite situation, like always I am in the lecture, but my mind is somewhere else […] I am physically there, but most of the time I learn from Panopto’. The survey data tend to support the latter view.

The students were candid about how they used lectures to understand what they did not need to study: ‘I think the lectures and slides for me […] are key, [they’re] more than 95% of what I do […] there are certain areas that I’m really interested in [but other modules that I just want to pass] So for those […] the lecturer, or module convener is going to be writing the slides […] and the exam; [and] in my experience I’ve just tended to find that if I know the lecture slides […] really, really well, you know, I can get a first without doing any of the reading’. She continued, ‘rather than reading a book chapter […] or a whole book in which [only a few paragraphs will be] relevant to the exam [and could take ten hours, and] might only be worth a few marks […] I could listen to ten hours of […] lectures and re-listen to the Panopto and that stuff is going to be a lot more relevant to the exam’ (FG2_F4).

Students often used the lectures as a touchstone for organising their schedule, for example: ‘I try and go to the lectures because I know that if I relied on Panopto I think it’s harder to motivate myself […] I just feel like it’s easier for me to stick to somebody else’s timetable rather than having like a whole day of free space’ (FG2_F4).

Although not uncritical of lectures and lecturers, students who attended the focus groups and the majority who responded to the survey were positive about the lectures. The theme of ‘lectures like seeds scattered on the wind’ describes a situation where, without a clear purpose or intent from staff, the students use the freedom they have to find their own ways of benefiting from them.

Whatever the intention or expectation of this lecture series, what was delivered was a transmissive allocution containing little interaction between student and lecturer within the lectures themselves. This discussion explores why that is so, and what students may derive from the experience.

This module has all the appearance of two separate modules bolted together to meet QA requirements. The principles of CA were embedded into QA processes in an effort to ensure that learning and teaching became more student-centric and ‘active’ (see Loughlin et al., 2021 ). Although the lecture series and the exam represent 75% of the overall module result, it would be challenging for these elements (alone) to meet QA criteria for active/collaborative learning. Most of the discursive and collaborative activity takes place in the self-contained research methods (coursework) element of the module. Because student interaction is checked-off in the module documentation, the course team are free to use the ‘standard lecture format’ for the balance of the module. Given the institutional ambition to provide ‘innovative’ and ‘active’ learning experiences, there is consequently a disconnect between the institutional rhetoric and the larger part of the module, made invisible by the design of the module syllabus. Hence, the function of LOs described in European HE policies and manifested in the module documentation has little to do with the learning and teaching practices they were intended to guard.

How the lectures ‘give’ students the ‘basic knowledge’, as described in the module LO, is unspecified. The module leader describes the lectures as an ‘introduction’ to each week’s topic (with no explicit form or outcomes); the lecturer speaks of being akin to a ‘personal trainer’, guiding students through the material, but emphasising that they do the work. Some students viewed lectures as a source of course content, others strategically, gaining insight to help them in the exam, others still, as an enjoyable social occasion with their friends. There is subsequently, no common understanding or expectation of the lecture.

The Institution approved a module description of eleven lectures and an exam, despite its avowal of ‘research-informed’ teaching; the lecturers then accept their allocation without complaint, while recognising that they are not ‘ideal for students or lecturers’; and a proportion of the students attend them because ‘they are timetabled’. Each of them trusting that learning will take place during these sessions, but none with explicit rationales for how that learning will take place. There is still then an expectation that content and ‘thinking skills [will] be absorbed, like some mystical vapours, from an academic atmosphere’ (Bligh, 1972 , p. 3).

Bligh is harshly critical of the large-scale transmissive lecture-style observed in this case study, and sceptical about the perceived obligation to ‘cover ground’ in lectures (particularly evident in early-career lecturers), he feels that what is ‘important is what the students learn, not how much the lecturer covers’ (1972, p. 19).

This point cannot be emphasised too strongly. The idea that lecturers should use the lecture method and no other for fifty minutes on end is absurd; yet it is quite common practice. (Bligh, 1972 , p. 70)

The argument for large-scale lectures is regularly made on economic grounds; however, ‘the lecture method is not economic in terms of time or anything else, if it cannot achieve the required objectives, and this achievement is open to question’ (Bligh, 1972 , p. 19). That more than 50% of the cohort in this study do not attend the live lectures, and those that do benefit so little in terms of exam performance lends support to the idea that the live lectures fail in their only stated objective: to ‘give’ students the ‘basic knowledge’, which is presumably tested in the examination. The lecture recordings appear to have more of an impact, although if anything, the relative success of the lecture recordings (in comparison to the live lectures—and still modest) reinforces the notion that the live lectures are relatively ineffective. If CA were working as intended at the practice level, then the assessment would reflect the intended learning outcomes, and the learning activities in the teaching sessions be aligned with the assessment. In this scenario, it would seem reasonable to expect a correlation between attendance at the live teaching sessions and the exam scores. It is possible of course that the issue lies with the assessment rather than the lecture. Even so, following the lecturer’s analogy of the personal trainer, if you went to a personal trainer for 11 weeks to prepare for a fitness test, would you expect to perform better (on average) than people who prepared for the test without professional instruction?

It is important to reiterate here that this module is successful in terms of the metrics valued by the University. It is oversubscribed (with academically able students); the student module evaluation results are higher than average for the University, as are the retention and pass rates.

The situation we are describing here is that of a module that performs well; most students pass the course with good grades and are largely satisfied with the course offering, yet the live lectures appear to contribute little to students’ success. This could be because the students are academically able and attuned to the requirements of the hidden curriculum. They have established what work they need to do to pass the course, and many appear to require little input from the teaching staff.

There is, however, an over-reliance on the student module evaluation at both the institutional and department level. The response rates for these evaluations at the Institution are typically low (around 30%) and therefore not necessarily representative of the cohort. The research evidence suggests that there is little or no correlation between these scores and the quality of teaching delivered (Tight, 2021 ); and connected to this are students’ misconceptions of effective teaching methods, and indeed their own learning strategies. For instance, in one study, students perceived that in active learning situations, they learned less than in passive lectures, whereas, in fact, the opposite was true (Deslauriers et al., 2019 ).

The hidden curriculum is premised on the idea that the formal curriculum is undermined by incompatible reward mechanisms for institutions, staff, and students. These reward mechanisms create implicit expectations and demands, antithetical to the aims of the formal curriculum. Institutions, for instance, are required to produce module documentation for QA processes that suggest student-centred teaching (the external audit driven expression of CA/OBE), but are rewarded such that there is no imperative to follow that through into practice (the inner/qualitative expression of CA/OBE) (Loughlin et al., 2021 ). Trigwell and Prosser argue that the teacher-centred approaches observed in this study lead to students adopting surface approaches to learning, ‘in which the intention is to reproduce the material’ (2020, p. 7), and that mindset was certainly evident in the focus group interviews, with many references to rote learning course content.

The fact is that, while most professors do want their students to explore ideas, generate new questions, and engage in intellectual risk-taking, they find themselves caught in a trap that militates against these goals. Large classes, rigid testing methods, overextended scholars who derive their principal rewards from research, all reinforce the system. (Snyder, 1971 , p. 14)

Recurrent practices ‘involve unreflective habitual routines […] learned by newcomers during the process of secondary socialisation’ (Trowler & Cooper, 2002 , p. 238). In this teaching and learning regime, they are the key to the maintenance of the status quo of large-scale transmissive lectures. The Institution, module leader, lecturer, and students all accept their lot, each gaining enough from the hidden curriculum to ensure that none pushes hard for an alternative, an alternative of which they are all aware, but presently have no imperative to pursue. In part, this is because it would entail additional effort from both staff and students for a conjectural benefit. Indeed, academics who adopt active learning approaches regularly suffer in student module evaluation scores, as many students prefer the (less effective) passive lectures (Deslauriers et al., 2019 ). There is a silent collusion between institutions, staff, and students which reifies the symbolism of traditional lectures and eschews more challenging alternatives.

There exists a delicate state of tension between the main stakeholders. If any of them questioned the educational offering, the power balance would be disrupted. For instance, the students or Institution could insist that the course team deliver the ‘active learning’ promised in the corporate literature or the academic team insist on resources from the Institution to enable those more collaborative and active approaches. Institutional constraints such as workload, time for preparation, cohort size, lecture theatre layout, student expectations, module evaluations, set textbooks, and career KPIs all appear to conspire in the reproduction of the status quo.

From the students’ perspective, the hidden curriculum in this module is not terribly well hidden. The formal curriculum has a set textbook, plus two recommended books and multiple journal articles for further reading. However, the course team repeatedly told the students that only topics ‘covered’ in lectures would be examined, which is a paradoxical approach to CA as all the recommended reading is then rendered more or less redundant for the purposes of succeeding in the module. Students are able to pick up on the cues of which study behaviour will be rewarded, and ‘get the highest grade with the least expenditure of effort’ (Snyder, 1971 , p. 8), as one of the focus group demonstrated when claiming that she ‘can get a first without doing any of the reading’. Channelling both CA and the hidden curriculum, Kickert et al. describe misaligned curricula , wherein only sections of curricula content is assessed, and assert that: ‘When our curricula are indeed implicitly encouraging students not to invest effort in unassessed learning, the consequences for both students and society will be dire’ (Kickert et al., 2021 , p. 8).

What then, are the students getting out of attending the lectures? The structure and routine offered by lectures came through strongly in the focus groups and student survey, as did the social aspects of attendance. Student networks operate as independently organised study groups, but also have a crucial support function, encouraging each other to attend, and resolving queries within the group.

An interesting aspect of these groups was their function in normalising uncertainty. Students who found that they were struggling to understand difficult concepts could become extremely anxious, yet if others in their network were also struggling, they were able to relax as they were all in ‘the same boat of confusion’. The realisation that it is okay not to understand everything at first hearing was important for these students.

The most surprising finding of this study was the lack of intentionality with regard to lectures; neither staff nor students could articulate a clear sense of their purpose. The students who go to lectures regularly enjoy them; they do not seem to overthink attendance, and, rather like their lecturer before them, in most cases, it simply ‘doesn’t occur’ to them not to attend. On the whole, there is no driving motivation, rather a sense that the lectures are provided, and ‘if it’s timetabled, you might as well go’. The primary benefits for the students appear to be the routine and structure that lectures offer, along with an opportunity to clarify problem areas, either with the lecturer during the break or with their peer network.

Their lectures contain the necessary information; there is little recognition of the inevitable fall-off of attendance as the weeks progress, or of the passive response of the majority of the class. Or, if acknowledgement is made, it is soon wrapped in the comfortable assertion that the students are free agents, they can attend lectures, take advantage of the library and the facilities as they see fit, cull through a bibliography, learn on their own. (Snyder, 1971 , p. 119)

Government and regulatory bodies of UKHE all espouse the virtue of student-centred approaches to learning and teaching, while simultaneously cutting funding per-student to levels that adversely impact staff-student ratios and contact hours. The Institution promotes active learning, while at the same time stipulating large class sizes and building fixed-seat lecture halls, which make that difficult for academics. The academic department also promotes active learning, while simultaneously enacting a bureaucratic style of leadership and allocating large-class lectures to junior colleagues, both of which, research indicates, lead to teacher-centred approaches (Trigwell & Prosser, 2020 ). The lecturer would like to use more student-centred approaches but does not have the workload capacity, or reward mechanisms to facilitate it. That students then adopt surface or instrumental approaches to their studies seems almost inevitable. That they do so well and seem reasonably content is perhaps more puzzling.

The Hidden Curriculum and What’s the use of Lectures are as relevant now as they were fifty years ago. While Bligh describes the problems with large-scale lectures and offers solutions, Snyder explains the implicit reward mechanisms for institutions, staff, and students, which tell us why those solutions are unlikely to be enacted (at scale) within contemporary HE.

As large-scale lectures are destined to be with us for some time, what can students extract from them? Student claims about the efficacy of their various study techniques can be questioned, but the emotional support offered by the informal networks created in lecture theatres is plain to see. And maybe that’s enough. While the mensurable impact of the lecture may be muted, it provides the space for these informal networks to exist. It would appear that for many of these students, the conversations and clarifications that take place in the breaks and after the lecture are (at least) as important as the content of the lecture itself.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the staff and students who participated in this study. They would also like to thank Katarina Mårtensson and colleagues from the Department of Educational Sciences at Lund University, who provided invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Loughlin, C., Lindberg-Sand, Å. The use of lectures: effective pedagogy or seeds scattered on the wind?. High Educ 85 , 283–299 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00833-9

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