policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
When nobody shows up
Empty lecture theatres ignite debate
over modern teaching practices.
By Kate Prendergast
F
riday, 9am. Then five past the hour.
The clock crept on. Still, the students
had not arrived.
Wondering if he was in the wrong
theatre, the lecturer called the subject
coordinator. Nope, he was in the right
place. Then it dawned on him: the students
simply weren’t going to show.
“It was a kind of bemusement more than
anything that I felt,” Danny Hatters told
Campus Review.
An associate professor of biochemistry
and molecular biology at the University of
Melbourne, he had known this day was
coming. It had become common for only a
small number of students to show up to his
lectures. Still, zero attendance was a rather
awkward milestone.
And he’s not the only one marking it.
Just a few days later, Alana Lentin, associate
professor of cultural and social analysis at
Western Sydney University, found herself in
the same lonely boat.
Hatters’ tweet commemorating his
first ever student-less lecture has since
gone viral among Australian academics,
students and miscellaneous pundits,
reigniting conversations around how higher
education can best present knowledge in
contemporary learning environments.
Where some criticised the slovenly ethic
and downright disrespect of students, others
found fault elsewhere.
Some pointed out that Sydney’s
astronomical rent prices and high cost of
living (compounded by insufficient student
housing) make it impossible for many young
people to live close to their university. If they
need to work that day to make rent, and can
12
listen to a recording of their lecture later,
what choice do they have?
Timetable clashes and overwhelming
coursework can also make traditional
lectures a low priority, others noted.
“Many students complain that there are
timetable clashes in their lectures, and the
response from the unis is this: ‘Thanks to
recorded lectures, there is now no such thing
as a missed lecture’,” noted Deakin University
associate research fellow Wesley Webster
on Twitter (as @WAJ_Webster).
“So, if a uni doesn’t consider it a
disadvantage, the students don’t either.”
Marcia Devlin, senior deputy VC at Victoria
University, also weighed in.
“What’s curious is why we in universities
persist with teaching approaches that
evidently do not effectively facilitate learning
for most students,” she wrote. “We’re smart
people who wilfully ignore the peer-reviewed
literature on learning and teaching.”
Devlin was behind a paper published
almost a decade ago that looked into how
higher education could adapt its teaching
practices for a changing modern context.
Now free to access online, it recommended
a refresh of the Australian Learning and
Teaching Council (ALTC) criteria so that
teaching could remain relevant and resonant
for increasingly diverse groups of students.
“The research ... shows clearly that didactic
teaching and passive reception do not result
in deep, lasting or meaningful learning for
most students,” Devlin told Campus Review.
“Yet we persist with lecturing at students
in large groups in most universities.”
Devlin has undisguised scorn for the
default PowerPoint model of presenting
knowledge. While it may have worked for
busy academics, it just isn’t effective for most
students, she said.
“Stand at the back of a typical lecture
theatre (if anyone has turned up at all past
Week 5) and scan the students’ screens – in
most, you’ll see Facebook and other social
media channels getting a good workout,
along with search engines and search
terms that may or may not be related to the
lecture topic.
“That happens much less in smaller
classes where the teaching is interactive and
the students are co-creating their learning
through being engaged and active.”
Nonetheless, her criticism of the lecture
is not wholesale. If led by a charismatic
and gifted teacher who goes beyond the
didactic mode of delivery, enriches ideas
through multimedia and creates a rapport
with the class, a lecture can be a stimulating
and valuable experience for students.
“The challenge is that the majority of
lecturing is not like that, which is why
students don’t bother coming and instead
either skip the class or watch it online.”
Flipped classrooms, problem-based
learning and simulations to help develop
practical skills are just some of the alternative
approaches she puts forward.
Devlin’s university has embarked on
The VU Way – what she proudly describes
as “arguably the biggest reinvention and
transformation of tertiary education in
Australia”. VU has dispensed with large
passive lectures in first and second year
We need to adapt to the
challenges online lectures have
created rather than ignore them.
and will do the same in third year in 2020.
Rather than study one unit over a semester,
students focus on one unit over four weeks
in small classes.
Hatters’ university is following its own
path towards addressing these modern
challenges. It’s kicked off the Flexible
Academic Programming (FlexAP) project,
which aims to reduce the reliance on
lectures and move towards more engaging,
student-centred approaches to learning like
workshops and inquiry-based projects.
“I personally feel that we need to adapt to
the challenges online lectures have created
rather than ignore them,” Hatters said. He
noted that his subsequent class, which was
tutorial-based and interactive, was back up
to normal attendance numbers.
Did Hatters tell his students of his lonely
Friday oration?
He did. But while he got a chuckle, it didn’t
change how many students turned up to the
following lecture. ■