Week 3: Lectures and alternatives

Lectures have long been a key aspect of education - teacher talks...learner listens. Over the last few decades - and you may recall this from some of the theorists we talked about last week - learning has increasingly been promoted as a function of "doing"...social in nature...and situated in a particular context.

During this time, lectures have been relegated to the zone of "don't do if you're cool". Unfortunately, much of the criticism is warranted. But, in the process, we are losing an exceptional tool for learning. This weeks reading starts with:
In Defence of Lectures. As one member of a listserv put it recently - "there are times when one should sit down to a really good meal prepared by someone else. A good lecture is like a well prepared meal."

With that affirmation of the importance of lectures, review the following readings on alternative approaches to teaching:
Common Teaching Methods (link doesn't always work)
Enhancing your teaching effectiveness (link doesn't always work)
Collaborative Learning - Berkeley
Conditions of Collaborative Learning
Cooperative Learning
Problem Based Learning

The readings present learning from a variety of approaches:
Direct, collaborative, problem/inquiry-based, and exploratory.

...finally, here's an important paper to consider: Why Minimally Guided Instruction Doesn't Work.