Few students would choose lectures as a teaching method
Academics and students need to collaborate to create an effective learning environment, say the authors of a survey of students at UK universities.
Paul Sander of the University of Cardiff and Keith Stevenson of the University of Leicester, interviewed 395 first year students in their first week of either medicine, psychology, or business courses. Students were asked how they hoped to be taught, and how they expected to be taught. Formal lectures emerged as almost universally disliked, although most students expected them to feature prominently in their course.
The medics criticised traditional lectures as a boring alternative to reading, lacking student imput, and encouraging parrot learning tactics. Most students hoped for innovative teaching methods, such as interactive lectures and group work, which were thought to be better training for doctors and better at delivering information in a memorable way. On the other hand, they were concerned about the value of