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The lecture has become less popular as a teaching method in recent years. Yet even in our enlightened age, when active learning methods abound, some educational purposes are well served by the lecture method. This article identifies appropriate purposes for the lecture and approaches that can be used to overcome its limitations, rendering it maximally effective. Selected research findings and recommendations of recognized authorities are presented.
The lecture is one of the most well-known teaching methods, but the questions "Is this medieval education format still relevant? If so, what is its function?" (Sutherland & Badger, 2004, p. 277) arise amidst the rich and vast array of instructional approaches at the educator's command. Constructionist models of learning and the active learning methods reign so widely that adult learning expert Stephen Brookfield (1990) admitted, "[AJt first with a frisson of secretive guilt, I introduced lectures into my teaching. From initially regarding this as something to be kept private at all costs, I now happily admit to any who are interested that formal presentations take up between 20 to 25 percent of my total teaching time" (p. 27).
How did the lecture come into such ill repute? Dictionaries define lecture as an exposition or discourse delivered before an authence or class for the purpose of instruction (combination of Soukhanov, 2000, and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 2004). Most educators view lecture as a one-way transmission of information (Sutherland & Badger, 2004). Because "the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled" (H alonen, 2005, p. 318, quoting Plutarch), when a lecturer transmits information one-way to a passive learner, the fire of learning and thinking fails to kindle. But is that always true?
Palmer (1998) contends that techniques are what you use until the teacher shows up. He believes that the educator's passion and reverence for the subject and his or her desire and skills to assist learners in connecting with the subject create effective teaching regardless of what method the educator uses. Effective teachers "weave a web of complex connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves" (Palmer, 1998, p. 11). Brookfield (2006) reminds us that "lecture is not a unitary...