Are traditional lectures ineffective as well as discriminative? Lecture format is developed over centuries, that present information to people about a particular subject and is highly accepted in field of education. In New York Times essay "Are College Lectures Unfair?" Annie Murphy Paul, a science writer, asks "Does the college lecture discriminate? Is it biased against undergraduates who are not white, male, and affluent?" as well as favors active learning approaches against traditional lecture style, while on the other side the author, Molly, Worthen in her essay "Lecture me. Really" discuses the importance of traditional lectures, as well as feels how it is faded from teaching methods in favor of "active learning" method. Being a student …show more content…
As Molly Worthen says, "Lectures are essential for teaching the humanities' most basic skills: comprehension and reasoning, skills whose value extends beyond the classroom to the essential demands of working life and citizenship. I do agree with her thoughts as we know lecture method is the oldest form of teaching as well as also very powerful to anything we do in classroom. At the same time Worthen does not feel same about active learning. In her essay she mentions about "A 2014 study showed that test scores in science and math courses improved after professors replaced lecture time with ''active learning'' methods like group work -- prompting Eric Mazur, a Harvard physicist who has long campaigned against the lecture format, to declare that ''it's almost unethical to be lecturing.'' Maryellen Weimer, a higher-education blogger, wrote: ''If deep understanding is the objective, then the learner had best get out there and play the game.'' From this we can clearly see Worthen doesn't supports group discussion, group work or other forms of teaching as well as ignores the research and relies on most of the
In her article, “Lecture Me. Really”, Molly Worthen addresses the issue college students know all too well: how to lecture properly. Published in the New York Times, Worthen writes a passionate article about lecturing but from the perspective of a professor. Worthen presents the idea that lecturing, although some may think ineffective in the classroom, is a way to truly challenge and engage students into critically thinking. Worth dictates this idea with an excellent build up logical argument but lacks the proper evidence to support her claims creating a faulty argument.
In his essay, "Why Colleges Shower Their Students With A’s,” Staples claims that student grades are increasing for the wrong reasons, causing college degrees to become meaningless. Staples provides evidence that average grades have increased significantly over the last several decades, but claims that it is not because students are working harder. The real explanation for grade inflation, he argues, is the effect of grades on both students and their professors. Teachers give more A’s to receive better evaluations and increase job security. Students give more importance to their grades as a result of the rapidly increasing cost of a college education. Staples argues that modern
Right from the start, the title of the article “Is College For Everyone?” sparks immediate curiosity. Pharinet, author of the article and current teacher, explains her numerous reasons as to why attending college is not for everyone. Although Pharinet is not as credible as we would like her to be, she makes an exceptional argument. Beware, an argument like this may alter our opinions as Pharient sits back pulling on our heart strings, playing with our minds, and hitting us with back to back facts.
Edmundson was considered one of the “interesting” teachers because of the fact he would tell jokes in order to keep the students interested, since it was the one way he figured worked; however, he did not “teach to amuse…or for that matter, to be merely interesting” (Edmundson, Greene-Lidinsky 390). College students get to pick their professors and they have to ability to find out if the professor is to their liking, or else they can just drop the class and/or find a better-suited professor. Edmundson felt as though the student’s “passion seems to be spent,” and that “university culture” is becoming more and more “devoted to consumption and entertainment” (Edmundson, Greene-Lidinsky 391). Furthermore, colleges make it even worse due to the fact that they make the campuses beautiful in order to attract students to apply, so students attend those campuses imagining that the classes will be just as
Although most of his evaluations are favorable, he was fearful of the comments that his class was also enjoyable; Edmundson doesn’t teach to amuse nor interest. He possesses the genuine passion of spreading knowledge resulting in hearing the students talk of how the course changed them as a person, an individual. (Edmundson, p.390). Addressing the culture of the university Edmundson believes they are more devoted to the consumer consumption and entertainment values. The quality of education is declining due to giving the consumer what they want, rather what they need. Higher learning is shifting towards a society that is sophisticated with technology. The marketing side of decisions that are made with the finances and education are primarily for money being placed their pockets and making sure it stays there due to their tenure and permanent seats. They will always have a job, but what about the decisions for the quality of the education? Or having to cover the expenses of staying current with the newest technology and amenities as well? In order to keep balance in all of this the school will usually raise tuition which causes a chain reaction of rising costs for everything. With the rise of costs, school becomes undesirable to the students who aren’t able to afford it, or the ones who go into debt
...d uses its appeal to make the student engaged. Students respond well when class discussion is open and formal. All too often, teachers design their lectures to. Students respond well when class discussion is open and formal. All too often, teachers design their lectures with the mindset that they need to facilitate their job through PowerPoint presentations and long lectures with little student interaction. There is something to be said about the accessibility of professors being approachable; however, having a class discussion that operates well creates the small interactive community both inside and out of the classroom. Ultimately, universities have the opportunity to mold the rather plastic minds of young adults; they need to be willing to take a hard look at how they instruct their students and offer new and invigorating teaching techniques in their classes.
They must form lessons that should aid students in understanding composition, definitions, transition words, and symbolism. There is no denying the significance these lectures bring; however, for some students, it is not enough to repetitively apply the mentioned rules to discussions they find disinterest in, deciding for themselves unwilling to participate in the conversation teachers beg for students to join. As mentioned, Fish proclaims that to diverge from teaching subject matter any other way that is not specifically academic, deviates too much and distracts from the correct process of intellectual thought. In his The New York Times piece, "What Should Colleges Teach?", Fish states his stance expressing one must "teach the subject matter" alone and not to "adulterate it with substitutes". He continues praising "the virtue of imitation," asking students to "reproduce [great author's] forms with a different content". Already, Fish demands from students derivative mimicry in which they must glean an understanding of another's process. I echo Fish's own question: "How can [one] maintain... that there is only one way to teach writing?" As students, we desire to express ourselves, and to follow the principles Fish speaks of, to "[repeat] over and over again in the same stylized motions", confines us from discovering the beauty and potential writing can bring. Rather, students are taught we must so closely follow fastidious rules and decorative wording, teaching English may as well, as Fish writes, "make students fear that they are walking through a minefield of error," and to use such a method makes students believe to write any other way will cause them to "step on something that will wound them", the odds of students learning anything are diminished (Stanley Fish, "What Should
Worthern further advances her claim by utilizing specific experiences of different professors. For example, she states the encounters from a Math professor Mark Tomforde as well as an English professor Angela Jackson- Brown to provide different perspectives to support her claim of the exacerbated use of informal language in conversing with professors. Professor Mark Tomforde reflects a moment,“There were also the emails written like text messages. Worse than the text abbreviation was the level of informality, with no address or sign off.” Through the narration of Professor Tomforde, who has taught over twenty decades, Worthern presents a believable witness of the transformation of how students address to the professor. It highlights students’ informality has exceeded the limit of being acceptable in a college environment in addition to the gradual disappearance of the value of respect. Similarly, Professor Jackson-Brown recalls, “deference has waned ...I go out of my way to not give them [ the students] access to my
Due to the effects of higher enrolment, teaching methods are now directed towards suiting the masses, thus everything has become less personal, as well as, less educationally in depth. Teaching techniques consist of multiple choice tests, rather than written answer questions which require critical analysis, as Jacobs states “So many papers to mark, relative to numbers and qualities of mentors to mark them, changed the nature of test papers. Some came to consist of “True or False?” and “Which of the following is correct?” types of questions” (Jacobs 49). While teachers also no longer engage in one on one conversations with students, but merely in a lecture hall among masses and everyone is seen as just a student number. Jacobs states a complaint from a student “who claimed they were shortchanged in education. They had expected more personal rapport with teachers” (Jacobs 47). Universities are too much focused on the cost benefit analysis, of the problem of increased enrolment, with the mind set of “quantity trumps quality” (Jacobs 49). The benefit of student education and learning is not being put first, but rather the expansion of the university to benefit financial issues. Taylor states “individualism and the expansion of instrumental reason, have often been accounted for as by-products
The subject of equality and inequality are a sensitive and controversial topic. Both equality and inequality were portrayed in the short story, “The Lesson.” In this short story by Toni Cade Bambara, Miss Moore, a well known woman in the neighborhood, gives the children in her local area a lesson about the brutal inequalities that are in existence within the socioeconomic status system. This leads the children to ponder about the equality and inequality that exists within society. Toni Cade Bambara uses her short story, “The Lesson” in order to shed light on the injustices and racial inequalities in society. The goal of the story is to not only fight for racial equalities, but socioeconomic equalities as well.
If colleges are going provide education at a hefty price, the quality of teaching shouldn’t be based upon a book rather their own teaching methods. Allie Bidwell, staff writer of usnews.com states, “in a survey of more than 2,000 college students in 33 s...
Do lectures and books really teach us anything about life? This is a question that famous American poet, Walt Whitman, dared to ask as he started his life’s work in poetry. Whitman dared to challenge preexisting ideas in the world, especially on the subject of education. He continually added radical ideas to his own personal pedagogy, or method of teaching. As Robert Louis Stevenson stated, “He was a theoriser about society before he was a poet.” (Stevenson) To understand Whitman’s ideas on the subject of education, we must first understand that he was actually an uneducated man, who had taught himself by reading books. The poetry resulting from his life experiences and thoughts has brought various ideas that have changed parts of society forever.
I felt as though I was only “filled” by my professor’s information and in a position where I must stick to the status quo that he implemented in the classroom. There was a certain lack of abstract theory and growth as students in this class, consequently causing me to learn almost nothing over the course of the semester. I had to drag myself to this 10:00am class and often came close to falling asleep as the education I was getting did nothing for me. Freire puts it perfectly as, “education is suffering from narration sickness” (216). I was certainly suffering from narration sickness in this class. PowerPoints were posted online in which each slide was jam-packed with information and in class all my professor did was read off the slides. Each session could not be more predictable and is essentially insignificant to most of us. As students, we were only there to “receive, file, and store deposits” made my teachers (Freire
Promoting fairness in the classroom not only gives the teacher respect but also gives the students a sense of safeness and trust within the classroom. Creating an environment that revolves around fairness, trust and respect will be beneficial to all of the children in the class. The terms respect and trust are pretty straightforward. There doesn’t need to be a debate on what those two mean, but the same cannot be said for fairness. When one usually hears the word “fair” it is often looked at as synonymous to the term “equal” but the two are not the same, especially in a classroom setting. The term fairness on the classroom level means that the individual students are given what he or she may need in order to be successful; fairness does not
It is also significant for students to be taught that knowledge is greatly important to the human race. Lecturing is crucial when teaching, students not only need to be thinkers but objective thinkers. In order for students to be objective thinkers they must be given instruction to obtain the knowledge needed. All core areas of learning are equally important in building an objective individual that has can function well in society; such as science, math, reading, writing and humanities. There must be a balance.