by Donald Clark, the Guardian
Students have just one chance to hear a lecture – and mostly it’s just someone reading their notes aloud. I would say that very intelligent academics and researchers leave their brains behind when defending what has become a lazy and damaging pedagogy – the face-to-face lecture. Imagine if a movie were shown only once. Or your local newspaper was read out just once a day in the local square. Or novelists read their books out once to an invited audience. That’s face-to-face lectures for you: it’s that stupid. What’s even worse is that, at many conferences I attend, someone reads out an entire lecture verbatim from their notes. Is there anything more pointless? It’s a throwback to a non-literate age. I can read. In fact, I can read faster than they can speak. The whole thing is an insult to the audience. Here are 10 reasons why face-to-face lectures just don’t work:
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