Timeline for What is the point of a lecture when you have a textbook?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
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| Sep 30, 2015 at 5:59 | history | edited | Peter Bloem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 5, 2015 at 13:38 | comment | added | Peter Bloem | @Kimball I'm afraid I was a little sloppy there. Our department director always says this. And while I'm sure she has good research to back this up, I can't find it myself. What I can find is several studies suggesting the opposite. I'm not if the question has been definitively answered yet, but what I said was definitely wrong. I removed the paragraph. | |
| Sep 5, 2015 at 13:34 | history | edited | Peter Bloem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 5, 2015 at 11:42 | comment | added | Kimball | Research shows that students who skip lectures do the same at their exams as those who attend. Can you provide references? I vaguely remember studies showing the opposite (at least in math), but the question of causation vs correlation was unanswered. | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 19:54 | comment | added | math_lover | Well handing out the lectures for students to read is the same thing as reading a textbook, no? | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 17:06 | comment | added | Todd Wilcox | @JoshuaBenabou In addition to what AMR wrote, a good lecture is also a performance, for which the notes are more like a script. I furthermore agree that there should never be a classroom of any size copying the same thing. Each student should be making their own notes in their own words, because the mental processing necessary to do that is an essential part of learning, and arguably the entire point of both lectures and homework. Teachers handing out lecture notes are actually doing their students a huge disservice. | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 14:55 | comment | added | AMR | @JoshuaBenabou the rationale behind not handing out lecture notes is that the professor actually wants people to turn up for the lecture and they feel there is very little insensitive for people to show up when they think they have everything they need. One of the best lecturers I know does this, and it is because most undergrads and some grad students don't have the maturity to appreciate the additional benefit they are actually getting from the lecture. Also there are studies that show the act of taking notes reinforces the process of forming memories. | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 12:49 | comment | added | user3730788 | With a text book you are required to sort everything out for yourself. By having access to an expert (the lecturer) there is the potential that you can learn more efficiently. In general the expert is knowledgeable not only about the topic at hand but at associated issues including prioritizing topics and tricky concepts that need better or further explanation. By attending a lecture you can tap into the expertise of the lecturer like your own (more or less) personal guide to the topic at hand. | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 12:32 | comment | added | Joseph | @Peter - Haha that's true =) | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 12:17 | comment | added | Peter Bloem | @Jospeh, I know, I know :) Still, I like to think that you get at least 5 or 10 minutes of courtesy attention before they open their laptop and start playing minecraft. | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 12:14 | comment | added | Joseph | "The fact that there's an actual person present in the same room as you, makes you sit up." We are still talking about students right? | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 12:00 | history | edited | Peter Bloem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 3, 2015 at 23:24 | comment | added | math_lover | @above: the lecturer could just share his lecture notes with students... often lecturers refuse to do this, which doesn't make sense to me. A classroom full of 50 students or so all copying the same thing, which is already written down somewhere, baffles me. | |
| Sep 3, 2015 at 17:33 | comment | added | gloomy.penguin | I like lectures because it highlights what the teacher feels important. You can get a lot of meta-data by watching what they place emphasis on. Plus, as always, you might learn from the other students' questions or general tangents and stuff. | |
| Sep 3, 2015 at 13:44 | history | edited | Peter Bloem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 3, 2015 at 12:34 | comment | added | Todd Wilcox | Education is a relationship and it's a lot harder to have a relationship with an author via a book than with a lecturer via being able to discuss things face-to-face. I think your answer captures that concept. +1 | |
| Sep 3, 2015 at 11:39 | comment | added | Peter Bloem | @Raphael that's not at all my intention with this answer. As I said: if you want to learn something, try to get the material in as many different forms as possible. A lecture is one, and sitting down with a book is another. In fact I'd say the lectures are optional and the book isn't if you really want to learn something. I'm just trying to answer the question of what the specific value is that lectures offer over other media. | |
| Sep 3, 2015 at 8:55 | comment | added | Raphael | While I have appreciated lectures for the reasons you list (rarely all of them in the same classroom, unfortunately), I feel like this answer succumbs to the false dichotomy "lecture vs self-learning" underlying the question and many answers. Ben Crowell's answer shows that there are alternatives. | |
| Sep 3, 2015 at 0:04 | history | answered | Peter Bloem | CC BY-SA 3.0 |