This weekend, American RadioWorks aired a fabulous program looking at efficacy of lecture in the classroom:

Don’t Lecture Me! Rethinking the way college students learn.

Research shows that it is impossible for students to take in and remember all the information presented during a typical lecture.

This is especially problematic in math and physics classes where it is necessary to think in the language of mathematics. It is difficult for the majority of students to understand, in real time, what the professor is saying if the student is seeing it for the first time.

Eric Mazur, a physics professor at Harvard says,

Lecturing is a waste of time. It’s not an effective way for students to learn information. Reading the textbook is better.

In Doctor Mazur’s class, the students are required to do do the “information gathering”, reading the textbook, before class, something that most students are not accustomed to doing in math and science classes.

Dr. Mazur has developed web based questionnaires based on the reading. At the end of the questionnaire, there is always this question,

Please tell us what you found difficult or confusing about the reading. If you did not find anything difficult or confusing, tell us what you found most interesting.

Mazur believes that purpose of education is changing from a paradigm where students studied to retain information to one where students. The key now, because information changes so rapidly, it to be able to find and use information.

The purpose of education now should be to learn how to learn.

Well stated Dr. Mazur!