The old vs. the new

Back in the olden days of the last century when I was an undergraduate the lecturing process was very specific. 

• The lecturer talked.
• The students listened, processed, and wrote down as much of it as they could.
• The lecturer departed.

There were smaller group tutorials where students had the opportunity to discuss and interact with the lecturer and each other.

Where in these two formats did the learning actually take place?

Now that I’m on the other side of the desk, I find that the lecturing process is not much different. However, being on the other side of the desk, literally facing the students I see a different perspective.

Take the large group lecture format, for example. The larger the group of students, the more variety there is in student attention spans, cognitive ability, English language ability, general behaviour, motivation and interest. The larger the group the harder it is to cater for such variety. Here’s a typical scenario – lecturer is explaining a concept –

• A group of students in corner A pick up the meaning very quickly and understand the concept
• A group of students in corner B have absolutely no idea of what has been said and are looking blankly at the lecturer
• A group of students in corner C are having linguistic difficulties and have turned to the student in front of / beside / behind them to ask for a translation in their native language. They now have disturbed all students in that zone.
• A group of students in corner D have ‘kind of’ understood the concept but  really need it explained again to be sure

What does the lecturer do – re-explain the concept. Result –

• Students in corner A are quickly bored and begin talking among themselves
• Students in corner B still haven’t understood the concept
• Students in corner C are still typically linguistically challenged to some extent, even if the lecturer’s re-explanation is slow in delivery and cuts the jargon
• Students in corner D now likely understand the concept

What does the lecturer do – move on, not re-explaining the concept. Result –

• Students in corner A remain tuned in, following the lecture
• Students in corner B still haven’t understood the concept
• Students in corner C still haven’t understood the concept
• Students in corner D still likely haven’t understood the concept

Agreed, the above is generalised and simplified but it begs the question. What’s the point of the traditional lecture? Would the students not be better off with a video recording of the lecturer giving the class? They can re-play it again and again as and when they want. Possible result – students in all corners understand the concepts being presented.

This is something that I discuss on a regular basis with both students and fellow colleagues. All are agreed that the videoed lecture would facilitate students being able to pace themselves. Modern technology means the process should be relatively easy to do. However, most are agreed that the discipline of physically coming to class carries a lot of weight. If students could delay attending their lecture, very allowable in the video version, would they do so indefinitely?

Whoever said lecturing is easy?

Language, like everything else, has to evolve

Language is changing, whether we like it or not. Like lots of other educationalists I cringe when I see text-speak in an academic piece or work.  I don’t even like to see dis-emvoweled emails. Tech speak, once the domain of the geeks only, is invading our everyday speech in strange and unusual ways. Should we be worried?

Am I behind the times, not keeping up with the evolution of language, or am I right to protect my interpretation of good English?

Here are some of the newer examples of the evolution –

• To refer to someone as “404” is the new way of saying they’re a bit slow. When a webpage goes awol and can’t be found, you get the 404 error message. So, someone who’s forgotten something or is a tad clueless about something is a 404. Marginally, less cutting than saying someone’s stupid…?.
• Even send a text message without checking the predictive text? Apparently, lots of us don’t and the predictive text becomes the real thing – you want to say “cool” but end up with “book”. A book is now cool, and only right and proper too.
• Here’s one I’m not keen on. Using the number of letters in the words of a well-used phrase to shorten it. The example: “I love you” becomes 143. Saying I-love-you is saying something profound to someone, “143” just doesn’t cut it for me.

U cn mk wht u lk of 8 bt i dnt lk it