Alternatives to Lecturing
Lectures are primarily a teacher centered learning option. In alternatives to lectures, the focus is now shifted from the teacher to a student centered approach with the teacher becoming a facilitator to the class. Alternative options to lectures do not necessarily mean removing lectures all together, but they may decrease lecture times to allow students to be actively involved in the learning. Student's brains rarely "click" and fully learn things during lectures. (Abu, A. 2012) Students need to be able to be "hands on" with what they are learning; they need opportunities in and outside of class to interact, experience, question, discuss, etc. Student centered and active learning approaches are viable alternatives to lecturing.
Depending on the class or assignment, here are some alternatives to lecturing. (TLTblueworking)
- Conduct an interview
- Guest speaker
- Student lead discussion
- Student summaries
- Pop a quiz
- Direct an observation
- Brainstorming
- Build consensus
- Buzz groups
- Case Histories
- Chain story, poem, article
- Chain math or science problem
- Charts
- Chalkboards/Whiteboards
- Class created annotated bibliography
- Conduct a survey
- Debate
- Demonstration
- Discussion
- Field Trips
- Film/Video
- Group activity
- Keep a journal
- Simulations
- Games
- Student Debate
- Learning Cell
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- Laboratory
- Learning Teams
- Maps
- Memorization
- Models
- News Articles
- Object/Object Lessons
- Panels
- Paradox
- Peer Review
- Picture Studies
- Problem Solving
- Projects
- Puzzles
- Quiz
- Questions and Answers
- Report
- Review
- Role Playing
- Skits
- Storytelling
- Symposium
- Take a poll
- Testimonies
- Class Clickers
- Think Pair Share
- Class Game
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Lecture 2.0
One alternative to current lectures is to evolve into a lecture 2.0 structure. For example, lectures maybe prerecorded; on a podcast, video, or slide show and made available for the students to view before they go to class. This then allows the face to face portion of the class time for student centered and active learning activities. The students are preloaded with the information they are learning and then given an opportunity to apply and reinforce during class. Check out the following link for more about the development of Lecture 2.0.
Future Scenarios Lecture 2.0
http://www.educause.edu/wiki/Future_Scenarios_Lecture_2.0
Advantages and Disadvantages of Group Activities
As previously stated, student centered and active learning approaches are viable alternatives to lecturing. In this article, Gary Hadler describes the advantages and disadvantages to working in a group setting.
Some of the advantages are listed as greater output, reduced bias, and increased risk taking. Some of the disadvantages include competition and conformity. Read on to discover all of the advantages and disadvantages to group activities in order to decide if this type of activity really is better than lecturing.
Related Links
Lecture 2.0
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Lecture_2.0
Fifty Alternatives to Lecture
https://edocs.uis.edu/boakl1/www/FiftyAlternativesToLecture.html
Do Podcasts Justify the Lecture Method of Teaching?
http://www.educause.edu/blog/slister/DoPodcastsJustifytheLectureMet/165749
7 Things You Should Know About Lecture Capture
http://www.educause.edu/ELI/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutLectu/163555
Twenty terrible reasons for lecturing
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/resources/20reasons.html
Science education: Spare me the lecture
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v425/n6955/full/425234a.html
Twilight of the Lecture
http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/03/twilight-of-the-lecture
References
Books
Waterhouse,S. (2005). The power of eLearning: The essential guide for teaching in the digital age. Boston, MA: Pearson Education
Websites
Images
Comments (2)
bjtaylor@... said
at 9:37 pm on Apr 24, 2012
You can check the page history to see the grammar type changes I made for the first paragraph, along with the original unchanged text if you would prefer to revert to any or all of it.
I do not want to mess up the citation changing it myself, but in APA only the first word of the title is capitalized, with the only exception being the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. I would suggest revisiting the citations and correcting for that.
All links seem to work, so no problems there.
I might suggest splitting up the two pictures for aesthetics.
While there are plenty of resources provided I might consider adding more meat the the page of the wiki, maybe taking key points from some of the linked articles and citing them within the wiki itself, giving the main key points, so that someone can get the big pieces of pedagogy from them surrounding lecture alternatives without having to leave the wiki. Likewise giving small working examples of how some of the alternatives listed in the table might look, or work in practice might also be useful.
John Le said
at 11:57 pm on Apr 24, 2012
Thanks for the edits and suggestions. I'll definitely add more to it and make those corrections.
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