What's the Use of Lectures?

After a lot of thinking, discussing and soul searching I decided last year that there was a topic I was so interested in that I wanted to spend a goodly amount of time researching it seriously. Fast forward six months and I have submitted a doctorate application to a university and am awaiting a decision. I am pleased and excited for several reasons. First, because I actually managed to find the head space and time to do some reading and thinking about my topic. Second, because I went beyond my usual procrastinating to actually writing down my thoughts and creating what I think is a reasonable proposal. Third, because I was organised enough to marshall my qualification transcripts, examples of other written work, references and my CV for uploading into my online application before the deadline. In fact, I think I should get a qualification just for getting the application in. Most of all I am excited because in doing all of the above I realised how much I want to do this research. For the first time in a long time I am  interested in something for its own sake and it feels great.

My research topic is the result of being influenced by two books - yes real books! The first one is a classic research text, first published in 1972. It's by Donald Bligh and is called 'What's the Use of Lectures?'. The second book was published much later in 2010, it's by Nancy Duarte and is called 'Resonate - present visual stories that transform audiences'. These two books are the ingredients behind what I want to look at which is whether the university lecture has a narrative or story structure.

Two books that have influenced me

Bligh's book, which has been republished many times in the forty years since 1972, details the plethora of research that has been carried over many years to show that (in a nutshell) the lecture as a teaching method is only effective at the transmission of factual information, and even at this it is no better than other teaching methods. In essence, this book and many other sources describe how unfit for educational purpose the standard university lecture is.

My starting point in thinking about the lecture was a growing dismay at the poor use of presentational technologies, such as PowerPoint, by lecturers during their teaching sessions. I include my own lectures in this.  Imagine the experience of the average fresher sitting in the darkened lecture theatre on week one of their degree waiting expectantly for their lecturer to deliver the very first lecture. The average student will experience between 250-300 lectures, probably most using PowerPoint, before they emerge after three years with their qualification.

When Bligh wrote his book, PowerPoint and Keynote were a long way off. So imagine that not only are lectures not an effective method of teaching, they may have actually been made worse by the use of new technology. That's not progress.

Stories, storytelling and narrative have long had a role in education, including higher education. Stories and narrative help with meaning making of experiences. Duarte's book describes how story structures are found in many great speeches, presentations and artistic performances and how they are fundamental to communication. So if a company wants to inspire change in its employees or if a politician wants to elicit loyalty in their followers, they use narrative to connect with their audiences, create support for their vision and effect change in people.

Here she is talking about her 'Resonate' approach.

My starting point on this was wondering if Duarte's ideas could be applied in a higher educational context to the humble lecture? Surely the goal of education is to inspire, move and change people. Perhaps narrative and stories offers a way forward for the much maligned (probably PowerPoint-based) lecture.

I hope we shall see.

Becoming Fully Cooked - Try Something New

Part of developing as a person, of becoming fully cooked as I describe it, is being open to learning. Learning something generally begins with trying new things. Most of us are willing to try new things but we are less good at sticking with them in order to benefit from the learning part. This is because learning tends to involve at least a small element of effort aka work.

I have a personal rule of trying something at least three times before I decide it's not for me but recently I discovered this TED clip by Matt Cutts who tries something new for 30 days.

A month is long enough to establish a habit and to achieve real goals or at least clear progress towards them. Since most of us are time poor, Matt's idea is that in order to create the space to try something new for 30 days, you would also give up something - usually something that's not adding a great deal to your life - watching TV trash, mindless internet surfing etc. 

So far using Matt's basic principles, I have managed to practice on my cello for at least half an hour everyday whilst decreasing my TV consumption. It's interesting how quickly, once you just accept you are going to do something, it just becomes part of your day. I've been rewarded by seeing (or is that hearing?) a real improvement in my playing. I'm still a beginner but I've a bigger and better repetoire and I'm closer to my dream of being a cellist.

Coincidently this article from the New York Times captures very well the joy of beginning to play a musical instrument once past childhood.

Space To Think

The photos are taken in 'The Lab' at Oxford Brookes. It's not the kind of lab you'd expect to find at a uni. Instead this is a space created specifically to give people a different opportunity to engage with the campus redevelopment that's going on (and was the subject of my previous post). The idea is that students, staff and maybe interested others can see examples of the different colours, treatments, flooring and furniture that is planned for the new Library and Teaching Building and to comment on these, or ask questions about something other aspect of the redevelopment. When I visited a tasting session for different types of coffee for the new cafes was underway. The Lab is part of the Space to Think initiative at the university.

The Lab@Oxford Brookes with model of the campus redevelopment

Barista at work - will you choose coffee A or B?

This is idea of having space to think got me thinking on several fronts. First, what does it actually mean to have space to think? Does it have to a be a physical space, which is what's implied here by the massive building project that's creating a huge new lecture hall and other teaching rooms, as well as informal spaces for 'connecting' (I presume that means connecting to WiFi), along with a state of the art library.

A long time ago, I studied something called environmental determinism as part of an urban planning elective I did for my degree in environmental science. Environmental determinism basically holds that your surrounding (built) environment can affect your behaviour. It's the theory behind policies like designing out crime and creating active spaces. It follows then that by appropriately designing the new space at Oxford Brookes perhaps thinking by students and staff will be changed, hopefully for the better. 

But does space to think really have to be a physical bricks and mortar space? Couldn't it also be a virtual space - a cyberspace where all sorts of different opportunities to think and do are available. Or perhaps a space in your mind? In a way meditation is having space to think, clearing your mind to enable you to focus on a problem, or to go within yourself to find peace and quiet to relax. Neither of these spaces involves buildings.

This leads me to my question for The Lab about the new Library and Teaching Building...

What will happen if the need for the kind of 'space to think' we are currently creating through the campus redevelopment changes?

I've been thinking about this partly because of this article in the Washington Post. It talks about the traditional lecture being replaced by more interactive methods of teaching involving smaller classes.

The lecture has been the dominant teaching method for centuries in universities. The architecture of most universities is defined by the need for large lecture halls - which are very specific spaces to think. The real estate of universities revolves around the successful usage of this space. The article believes that the lecture hall is not a very good space to think. In the future, it suggests that, spaces to think will involve connecting online and/or being face to face in smaller, more active spaces than the lecture hall.

So if we are creating a new teaching building based on the need for large lecture rooms, it may not be space to think after all. Or maybe the prediction of the demise of the lecture (and the lecture hall) is exaggerated, as it has been so often in the past.

A University Grand Design

This is the BEFORE...

This photo is taken from the corridor in Department of Real Estate and Construction at Oxford Brookes University, where I work. The Department's building is due to be demolished before the end of the year and it will then reveal the secret that it has been hiding for the last year or so...the new Library and Teaching Building, which is fast rising out of the ground as you can see. The demolition will create space for a public square, forming part of the entrance setting for the new building - artist's impression of which is shown here. This will be the University's new 'front door' and faces onto the London Road - a major route into and out of Oxford.

...this will be the AFTER

It's quite apt that a department of real estate and construction should overlook the new development and it has been very interesting watching the different phases of construction take place. From the:

However, it's difficult not to have mixed feelings seeing buildings that you have known so well being quickly taken down. One thing that the property professions teaches you is that it's important that buildings are usable. That can mean different things.

Bill Bordass is one of the people behind a charity called the Usable Buildings Trust which looks at how buildings work for their users in environmental as well as economic terms. The charity has a website with a lot of resources here.

Nearly A Fully Cooked Person

So what does fully cooked mean?

When someone is described as fully cooked I think it means they have experience and knowledge, and they have learnt much. It's sort of the opposite of saying a person is a raw beginner - that they are 'uncooked'. I suppose it's strange to talk about oneself as nearly fully cooked, or almost ready to serve. I don't know why I have always used this term to describe myself and other people, nor do I know where it comes from. The connection to food is a useful one though. Quite often you meet a person for the first time and they appear to you to be an adult, grown up and mature. Then, as you get to know them better, you realise that actually they are not that at all. They are like a pudding taken too early from the oven. It looks cooked on the outside but inside it's still got a way to go before it's ready. This happens the other way round as well, when you meet an incrediby sage young person, who you expected to be inexperienced in life.

I'm not saying it's disappointing to find that people aren't fully cooked. Becoming a cooked person takes a long time for some people, maybe a lifetime.