Lecturing in Maths: A Shift is Needed
Lecturing is the primary form of instruction in higher education. I can recall countless times in my mathematics classes where my professor continuously writes on the whiteboard, talking in a monotone voice, and only pauses to rest their shoulder or answer a stray question that comes once a millennium from a student. Furthermore, my colleagues recall their Calculus classes having over 150 students crammed into a class with rotating teachers presenting content on a daily basis. However, I would be remiss to say that all lectures come in this form, as I have been apart of some excellently planned and executed lectures where there is more than just writing notes. A question that I want to ponder and discuss in this article is this: are lectures effective in teaching information to students?
The advantage of a lecture is that you can cover a vast amount of information in a short amount of time. If you can remember your calculus book from your undergraduate class, you have to move swiftly if you hope to cover the behemoth of Calculus.
However, for the advantage you gain in speed you can lose in student understanding and retention. Since most lecturing is focused upon covering as much material as possible, less time in class is dedicated towards solving a variety problems and looking at specific cases. Many exercises are left to students to complete as homework on their own time. This can be a positive aspect of learning, as students are left to solve and engage in important practice to understand the material. However, if the student does not learn the content necessary to be able to complete these problems in class, then these practice problems can cause frustration and discouragement among students.
Even if you are not interested in the instruction style of undergraduate math professors, passing College Algebra is a massive issue in many undergraduates education journey. According to the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) 50% of students who take College Algebra do not pass with a C or above. This leaves many of them to retake the class, continuously trying to pass this course in order to meet the requirements of their degree. For some, this can provide a barrier to earning a college degree and access to higher paying careers. This places an even greater emphasis on ensuring that instruction from professors is providing students the ability to conquer these courses through lecturing. So let’s talk about lecturing.
Lecturing is a form of presenting material in order to aid learning for students. By the time a student is an undergraduate, it is assumed that they are able to have habits to study and learn material. Therefore, lecturing is not the vessel of where learning takes place, rather it is aiding students in accessing the material. Lecturing by itself is underwhelming and not enough on its on to learn the material. An individual will, most likely, not learn the material from simply copying down notes from the board and later on taking the exam. It takes study, recall, and practice of material to achieve mastery. So how can professors maximize the time during lectures for students?
An increasingly popular lecturing style of ‘interactive lecturing’ has been adopted by many faculty in higher education and has seen positive outcomes in student learning. For instance, in a study conducted in an upper level Biology class, two different classes were compared using two different lecturing styles. The first style was a traditional fully 100% direct lecture to the class, no intervention or change was done to this group. The second style was a lecture interspersed with checks for understanding done through multiple choice questions that students would answer on a clicker. Their results would pop up on the screen showing which answer choice most students selected on a histogram. Lecturers would then prompt discussion within smaller groups (a turn and talk) to discuss the question further, explain choices, and talk about misconceptions. The time distribution for the second group came to around 70% lecturing and 30% of the time spent on discussion and checking for understanding.
The outcome of the study was that the average score of the post-test for the interactive group was 9 points higher than the regular lecture group. There are other indicators of results in this study as well, for instance which grade band group benefitted the most, but it is evidence showing that interactive lecturing has a positive benefit over traditional lecturing.
However, an interesting aspect of this study was how the students felt about the interactive lecturing style. Students in the interactive lecturing style disliked the interactive lecturing style greatly. The author of the article cites that students thought of the activities as “a distraction and a waste of time.” Furthermore, when students were confronted with group work in class, some complained as they did not see the positive outcomes of working in a group.
So where does this leave us at from our original question of is traditional lecturing effective? I would argue that if we have evidence that interactive lecturing is showing more positive benefits for student learning than traditional lecturing, then we should have a shift towards more interactive lecturing. From cognitive science we can see there are benefits from frequent pausing of questioning, answering multiple choice questions interspersed, and small group discussion. However, this is only a single study and as with any study performed on humans in a space that is difficult to control, the results have to be taken with a grain of salt.
I believe the answer to our original questions is yes and no. In my opinion, I would argue that lecturing in maths is a fine way to learn the material. There are plenty of incredible mathematicians that have learned through lecturing. However, I argue that the shift towards more interactive lecturing is positive and needed. The implementation of this can be difficult for professors, much as presenting content for classroom teachers can be difficult and tedious to plan. However, if undergraduate education is a focal point for learning institutions, a shift towards taking lecturing more seriously is critical. Higher institutions need to invest more in instructors, through higher pay and development, so that they can be able to teach to their highest potential. It is insane that many professors hide behind their ‘busy schedules’ and ‘research priorities’ to have poorly planned and presented material for individuals whom pay thousands of dollars to learn it.
Like all things, it is easier said than done. I’d like to personally thank my own professors at my college for having such wonderfully planned lectures and activities for when I was an undergraduate, they have done a lot to inspire my own lessons with students.
Sources:
https://hechingerreport.org/high-failure-rates-spur-universities-overhaul-math-class/
https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/05-06-0082