Should College Lectures Be Reduced?

Colleges looking beyond
the lecture

By Daniel de Vise, The
Washington Post

The lecture hall is under attack. Science, math and engineering departments at
many universities are abandoning or retooling the lecture as a style of
teaching, worried that it’s driving students away. The faculty at Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore has dedicated this academic year to finding
alternatives to the lecture in those subjects. Johns Hopkins, Harvard
University and even the White House have hosted events in which scholars have
assailed the lecture. Lecture classrooms are the big-box retailers of academia,
paragons of efficiency. One professor can teach hundreds of students in a
single room, trailed by a retinue of teaching assistants.