VC’s corner
campusreview.
The end of lectures?
VU’s senior deputy VC talks
future-ready teaching.
By Marcia Devlin
R
esearch shows that didactic teaching
and passive reception do not result in
deep, lasting or meaningful learning
for most students.
Yet we persist with lecturing at students
in large groups in most universities.
Worse, one of the most common
lecturing practices is to ‘stand and deliver’
PowerPoint slides.
Lectures may have worked for many
academics – who were, as students,
particularly intellectually able, intrinsically
motivated, and keenly focused and clear
on their educational and vocational goals,
that is, to continue to pursue knowledge
throughout their career through research
and teaching – but this approach is not
effective for the majority of students,
who go on to fill other roles and pursuits
outside of academia.
The challenge is that the lecture persists
and is assumed to be the basis of effective
teaching practice when it may or may not
be, depending on the student and context.
Stand at the back of a typical lecture
theatre (if many – or any – students have
turned up at all past Week 5) and scan the
students’ screens. You’ll see Facebook,
Messenger 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
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topic. That happens much less often in
smaller classes where the teaching is
interactive and the students are co-creating
their learning through being engaged
and active.
Not all lecturing is bad. A lecture hall
can be led by a gifted, enthusiastic, well
organised teacher with outstanding
communication skills, who builds and
maintains rapport, shows respect for
students and their learning, engages them
in activities and critical thinking, enables
collaborative approaches to problem
solving within the class, provides stimulus
for deep thinking during and after the
lecture, makes concepts come alive
through examples and the use of various
media, provides ‘aha’ moments for those in
the room, and so on.
The challenge is that the vast majority
of lecturing is not like that, which is why
students generally don’t bother coming
and instead either watch it online (at
double speed – ask a student) or skip the
class altogether.
REIMAGINING THE LECTURE:
THE VU WAY
At Victoria University (VU), we are acutely
aware of the massification of higher
education, the worldwide widening
participation movement and the increased
student diversity that this brings.
We know that students’ lives are
increasingly characterised by multiple and
competing priorities in a distracting and at
times overwhelming digital context.
We understand that students want
personalised, flexible learning opportunities
that enable them to manage their
multiple work, family, social and other
commitments outside of university, while
getting the most out of the financial and
time investments they have made in study.
With all of this in mind, VU has radically
and successfully reimagined our approach
to learning and teaching by drawing on the
evidence base of what works.
We have done away with large, passive
lectures in first and second year and will do
the same in third year in 2020.
We have replaced semester-long units of
study with a structure where students focus
on one unit at a time over an intensive
four-week period, in small classes of no
more than 30 students, and through active,
engaged, collaborative and deep learning
with their teacher and fellow students.
This is supplemented by both high quality
online materials and wraparound, just-in-
time study and learning support.
We call this The VU Way.
The focus is on the individual learner
and their success, and the impact on
students has been extraordinary, with
pass rates, grade distributions, retention
and student satisfaction dramatically
improving in the units where this mode has
been introduced.
This helps us address both our promise
to be the university of opportunity and
success, and the increasing accountability
inherent in measurements of teaching
and learning and in performance-based
funding.
We hope that it will also continue to
help us be competitive in a global tertiary
education marketplace where transnational
and globalised approaches to education
are growing.
As the Australian economy moves from
a reliance on mining and manufacturing,
to a new era in which new knowledge
and ideas are precious commodities,
universities have a critical role to play.
Internationally, the role of universities is
even more important as innovation, the
transformation of businesses, technology
and access to knowledge and education
take place amid prevailing inequalities,
political tensions, environmental
challenges and huge economic changes.
While we tend to revere research that
creates new knowledge in universities –
and there is good reason to do so – we are
significantly less enthusiastic about sharing
that new (and existing) knowledge through
our other core business of teaching.