LECTURES & LECTURE NOTES

Our students attend classes (more or less), take notes (more or less), read their recommended textbooks (more or less), go to laboratory classes, do their exercises, write their laboratory reports, work through their assignments, do their tests, pass their examinations and they are educated. Or so we hope! The student body is not uniform and the learning styles, study habits and modes of acquisition of knowledge vary widely. Hence the spread of marks at the end of semester when we have finished assessing a particular subject, even if all of our students have theoretically received the same “education”.

The sensitive educator provides a banquet of teaching from which each student can partake a (hopefully) nutritious meal of learning. Who is to tell us as educators what brain foods we are to provide at our banquet such that the dishes there are not only appealing but also highly nutritious? Humour my analogy a little further… In amongst the tasty morsels that look wonderful and taste delicious, enticing one to eat them, we must include the basic nutrients for a healthy diet, while eschewing the harmful junk.

The situation is complicated nowadays with all of the learning resources that are available. The humble textbook is still around, but has been supplemented by eBooks, internet resources, more sophisticated classroom presentations, manuals, CDs, DVDs, laboratory and clinic exercises that incorporate virtual experiments and patients. A formidable menu of choices for the educator, who may well be overwhelmed by its wide variety.
 

And yet, how often is it that we hear from the students: “What do I need to know to pass the exam?” or “Are my lecture notes enough to pass?” or “Give me a list of things to study for the exam.” Learning may well be driven by fear of the final assessment. The lecture is still seen by students as the primary way in which deliver information to them that is the most relevant for the learning outcomes we set for them at the beginning of the class. Academics at university are still wedded to the “lecture” as the be all and end all of teaching. The lecture, which unfortunately in many ways has not changed for hundreds of years.

It is not unusual therefore that lecture notes become the primary source of material for pre-exam revision. A student may know how to take good lecture notes, but more often than not, good note-taking skills are very rare. No wonder students often demand lecture notes from their instructor. For me personally, this has never worked. I need to take my own notes, even if I am provided with full notes (no doubt this is the case with many other people). However, I appreciate that others require notes as provided by the lecturer, which they rubricate, highlight, and expand, thus using them effectively as learning tools. Still others, will take the lecture notes provided and sit back in the lecture passively listening (at best), not even bothering to jot down a point that the lecturer is making that is not on the notes. Others still (hopefully a small minority) will rely on the notes given and not even turn up to the lecture, however engaging this may be and whatever extra information the lecturer may add to the presentation that is not included in the notes...

How do we deal with this issue of learning materials? What do we provide and what do we not? I full well realise that different subjects may have different needs and requirements, but do we set minimum requirements by which all of our teachers have to abide? Do we set a maximum ceiling? (We do not want to spoon-feed, do we? These are tertiary students we teach!). What about the quality of the material? Copyright issues? What about the textbook? Or even, the dreaded PowerPoint slide printouts that lecturers are often guilty of reading from, verbatim?

“Education is a kind of continuing dialogue, and a dialogue assumes, in the nature of the case, different points of view.” Robert Hutchins (1899 – 1977)

What do you think? How do we engage students in this dialogue?

(The illustration is from a fourteenth-century manuscript and shows Henry of Germany delivering a lecture to university students in Bologna.  Artist: Laurentius de Voltolina; "Liber ethicorum des Henricus de Alemannia"; Kupferstichkabinett SMPK, Berlin/Staatliche Museen Preussiischer Kulturbesitz, Min. 1233)

EDUCATION

Education is widely regarded as something that all people should have, something all should experience and consequently derive benefit from. While hardly none would disagree with this, the model that is used to educate people at various levels of schooling gives rise to great debate. Different models of education, widely varying in their approach coexist side by side and are more or less effective. Public and privately funded educational systems have their supporters and opponents and each has its merits and pitfalls.

Preschool and primary school education is regarded as the foundation-building stage, in which basic skills in literacy and numeracy are acquired. The child at this level develops not only the intellectual skills needed to deal with the influx of new fundamental information, but also the motor skills required in the process of writing legibly, social skills that underpin a harmonious co-existence with other people and the beginnings of higher mentative processes, such as those that are needed for ethical/moral discrimination, artistic and musical appreciation, etc.

Secondary schooling allows for the development of acquisition of broader knowledge in the humanities and sciences. Language and art, history and literature, physical and biological sciences are introduced at suitable levels throughout the school career and training in independent critical thinking processes begins, with logical and analytical skills being honed, especially so in the later years of this educative process. The character development that was begun in primary school is fine-tuned here. Secondary students have to deal with a large variety of issues, including the obvious biological one of puberty that will impinge on their learning.

Tertiary level education involves the student in a journey of self-discovery where thoughts and mentative processes can be examined in detail, where more complex information is not only passively acquired, but where it is analysed, critically evaluated and reprocessed. The world versus the self are contrasted and the student will need to deal with the conflicts that arise therefrom. The tertiary study experience should act as the springboard for original thinking and problem-solving in unfamiliar situations, and should result in creative intellectual activity, and in organised and logical thought.

Having worked as an academic at many Universities has given me an immense sense of responsibility towards students, colleagues and the community. I have always upheld a certain standard of educational experience in a system that has come under a great deal of pressure and stress in the last few years. We have survived various forms of reorganisation, rationalisation and changes of management. We have redesigned the curricula, updated programs and courses, and have had to cope with several changes in the way the students are selected for admission. To be an academic in such an environment is extremely labour-intensive and often frustrating, but at the same time it is infinitely rewarding. One certainly does not persist in being an academic for the pay involved!

One of my concerns in recent years is the declining academic standard of the average university student. The question arises of why this should be so, even if one is aware of the increasing pressures of government, society and family to push more secondary students into the tertiary sector, rather than directly into the workforce. I suspect that the basic problem arises in secondary and primary school level. There are students in secondary schools that have basic literacy and numeracy skill deficiencies. The wife of one of my colleagues teaches in a secondary school (admittedly, it is in a lower socioeconomic class suburb), but she maintains that even children born here, from families of native speakers of English, have immense trouble with basic reading and writing skills. She complains that when these children come to high school from primary school, some of them can barely read and write.

We live in a society that is increasingly reliant on technology. A society that will depend more and more on an educated population in order to cope with the information revolution that has changed our lives dramatically in the last couple of decades. We require specialised, analytical, quick-thinking, problem-solving educated people in our society and yet we find that we have rather poor raw material in our universities to work with. How can such a problem be resolved? I would like to explore several paths to its solution and I welcome your input!