Why Lectures Are Doomed

Dissecting learning through lectures and its limits

I recently had a conversation with my Master’s thesis adviser Sanjay Patel about how we need to change education to be less about learning and acquiring knowledge but rather more about teaching the skills to make independent learners. He disagreed and felt that the bigger issue is making sure there is quality content and collating it. And while I disagreed with him on the whole, I have to agree that there is such a thing as impactful quality content. So I wanted to share some thoughts on quality content, specifically lectures and explore their limits.

How would you tell it’s a lecture if you don’t see a scene like this // Credit to “_DSC8037” by Sergey Vladimirov is licensed under CC BY 2.0

For starters let’s define a lecture. Wikipedia defines a lecture as:

A lecture (from the French lecture, meaning reading) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history, background, theories, and equations. A politician’s speech, a minister’s sermon, or even a business person’s sales presentation may be similar in form to a lecture.

I like this definition because it not only distills a lecture into its essence of an oral presentation to a group but also reminds us of the ubiquity of this teaching format. So how can one measure the quality of a lecture:

1. Capture and hold attention
2. Accomplishes its educational goal

What we want attention to look like but it really isn’t as simple as this is it? // Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash

Seems like an obvious thing to say but I do feel it is worth repeating. Now from years of schooling we start thinking that it is the job of the audience to pay attention. When in reality it is the job of the speaker to capture attention. Attention is not something that we can give or pay. Rather it is what happens naturally when a lecture is working. Any time we are asked to pay attention, we can muster up a few seconds of attention before we lose interest again.

Now capturing attention is easy. TV and video games regularly manage to capture people’s attention for hours. So you need the counter metric of it needs to cover its educational content.

So I have a vast amount of experience as a student and as a teacher. I say that, because I have under my belt a wide variety of experiences in both those roles. The kid sleeping two feet away from the teacher, the disruptive kid in the back of the class who the teacher calls on in a class of 300 to shut up, the presenter that only hears crickets when asking questions, the presenter that obsesses over a point that no one cares about. If there’s a way to fail in those roles I’ve done it. So I can confidently guide you on how to be a good presenter (really don’t do what I do but fortunately I have the self-awareness to tell you what’s left)

1. Establish motivation
2. Build on existing foundation
3. Stimulate their minds
4. Answer what people are thinking
5. Give distractions

Establish Motivation

I’ve talked about “why” quite a lot in my other posts, in particular “Why, Oh Why, Oh Why?” But there are other techniques to establish the motivation while speaking. Ask some questions which awaken your curiosity, establish yourself as interesting or entertaining. You have to establish this within the first few sentences because most audiences will give you the benefit of the doubt when you start speaking. So you have to quickly capture their attention by establishing the motivation.

So establish motivation before it is too late.

Build On Existing Foundation

This ties neatly into the question of why. Because that establishes a relationship with existing curiosities that you have. But it doesn’t stop there. When Sanjay was talking about good content this is the heart of what makes educational content good. You need to walk the person through your story. Relating everything to the knowledge that they already have using that as a foundation. And slowly piece by piece you create the ideas you want them to have.

Ideas are constructed in our mind like a Lego building. One brick at a time attached to existing structures // Photo by Aedrian on Unsplash

To do this effectively you need a complete grasp of the subject. You can relate to it in multiple ways. That way you can be prepared with the journey you want to walk them through. In case the direction changes, you’re ready to chart a new journey if necessary. If you find the foundation is lacking you can build the foundation. It’s as if the person that said, “you don’t understand something until you can explain it to a six year old” was on to something.

Don’t forget though, if you make too big a leap the person cannot follow what you’re saying. If you make too small a leap you may lose your audience by being too slow and boring them. So you must understand your audience and cater what you’re saying to them to their needs.

An educational experience is like any other journey. The key is to pace yourself. Too fast and you risk injury or tiring yourself. Too slow and you won’t be able to get to shelter // Photo by Austin Ban on Unsplash

So build on existing knowledge but at just the right pace.

Stimulate their minds

Learn is a verb. The individual learning must act to make it happen. So you need to stimulate the mind of the learner. Ask intriguing questions. Give pauses to allow people to digest the information and think independently. Show visuals that make them think. Draw things with them so they can predict what happens next.

Of course, you need to be careful. You still have a lecture that you are giving with points you’re making. As they start thinking and letting their imagination run wild you might lose their attention on the content you are trying to teach.

I know we want them to be creative with their ideas exploring the full gamut but I have some slides to get through. So how about I offer you a compromise. FYI — the bottom part is not as drab as it looks. If you cover the top part you’ll see it is plenty colorful. I think there is a metaphor in there somewhere // Original image before modification courtesy of “Dreams From My Childhood: I Can Draw A Rainbow” by Kaydee H is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

So stimulate their minds but don’t let their thoughts wander.

Answer What People Are Thinking

As you stimulate people’s minds you want them to be asking questions and you have to answer them. So when you’re weaving the story in building on existing foundations you must keep asking yourself what are the thoughts running in their mind. And you give them answer to their questions and planting the seed for the next question. This game is how you capture people’s attention.

Of course if you have the luxury of presenting to a live audience you might get some help with them asking the questions there. You can take more risks if you have mastery over the subject and a rapport with the audience to even let them drive the discussion with their questions. But a lot of times people prefer not to ask the questions out of shyness. So you have to be empathetic. When you are preparing to say what you’re trying to say you need to ask the questions a novice would ask rather than an expert.

The jumping from one question to the next when learning is a bit like a game of hopscotch. // Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

So answer what people are thinking even when they don’t tell you.

Give Distractions

We know they have to think. They have to absorb the knowledge. But you can’t overburden someone when they’re trying to think. And let’s be fair here, the entire reason for you to give a lecture is because it is faster to give a lecture than to learn from scratch. So if you’re doing your job right they should be overwhelmed. Of course being overwhelmed is not good for learning. So you have to provide distractions. The most typical mechanism is appropriately timed jokes. There’s a lot of research indicating that humor helps with retention.

To be honest I get distracted quite easily. And for me humor resets my attention. I am once again interested as if the conversation is just starting. And so any good teacher I can think of I liked their sense of humor. Of course, when you do this, you have to be sure the distraction is controlled and lets you recover attention. Ideally the distraction should reinforce the concept you’re trying to build.

Now you know there was a method to my madness with these tangentially related stock images // Image still from the Warner Brothers movie “The Joker”

So give distractions to hold attention

Now I believe I am missing. Something very important. Oh right. The title. Something about lectures are doomed. So far this seems like a guide on how to give a presentation. All you have to do is follow the 5 simple rules:

1. Establish motivation before it is too late.
2. Build on existing knowledge but at just the right pace.
3. Stimulate their minds but don’t let their thoughts wander.
4. Answer what people are thinking even when they don’t tell you.
5. Give distractions to hold attention

Simple oxymorons maybe. In practice what I’ve written is extremely difficult to get right.

The Perfect Balance

Everything has to be in perfect balance for a lecture or any other instructional content to be good. And this is genuinely hard as a skill. CEOs reserve this for the quarterly updates. Presidents for special occasions. You need to be a comic, except not just any kind of comic, one that can crack a joke about Calculus. Are you starting to see the problem in putting your faith in consistently achieving and maintaining this balance. And this is the crux of the disagreement between me and Sanjay. We both believe good content is hard, very very hard. I just believe that it is hard enough that better alternatives are within reach.

Catering To Masses

Any content caters to multiple individuals. Each of whom will require their own pace, follow their own directions with thoughts. You have to create something that actually appeals to everyone. That the slowest will follow, and the fastest won’t get bored. This doesn’t sound as difficult as it sounds like a paradox. I don’t know a single teacher that accomplished their goals universally.

A Fixed Pace

What makes lectures different from other content is that they have a fixed pace. Especially if the lecture is live. If the pace doesn’t match yours then tough. This is slightly better in pre-recorded video lectures because you can go back and even adjust playback speed. But doing that in video is still cumbersome compared to when you’re reading when you realize, “I have no idea what I just read. Let me read it again and this time parse every word.” And the thing is everyone hits this issue with some content. Sometimes their brain is off thinking the wrong question and has the wrong frame of mind and just can’t absorb the information the lecturer thinks is simple.

An Empathetic Egotist

Empathy is an extremely difficult skill. And in a lecture we require it from the people over the subject that is their life’s work, their pride and joy. We expect the person that knows everything, to see the world from the eyes of the person that knows nothing. We are requiring empathy from people in the areas where their ego is strongest.

“Okay, okay, I hear what you’re saying, but doomed? Come on now.”

So I’ll concede. I don’t expect or desire lectures to go away completely. I talk about this in my post on “Should education be a layered cake?” But I am going to assert if we have any hope of overcoming the so-called skills shortage we cannot have the lecture be the primary means for imparting knowledge.