Lecturing as a Teaching Style: Strengths and Modern Adaptations

Introduction to Lecturing as an Educational Tradition

From the ancient Grecian sophists delivering rhetorical oratories to adoring throngs, to the staid scientists presenting analytical treatises to graduate students, vocalizing an organized lecture to a group of students has long been among the hallmarks of traditional educational delivery. The process of arranging complex subject matter within the relatively accessible framework of lecturing affords educators a number of distinct benefits, including the standardization of student exposure to learning material, the ability to customize lessons in accordance with the collective needs of a class, and the opportunity to inject creativity into dense and demanding instruction.

Despite the historical reliance on lecturing to impart knowledge and skills to a wide audience, the modernization of educational communication that has occurred in conjunction with the digital age has exposed many of the disadvantages inherent to the typical teacher-delivered lecture. The availability of online lecture series delivered directly from experts in particular fields, rather than professors who hold a superficial knowledge based on textbook material, has emerged as the next evolution in educational lecturing, with thousands of students viewing interactive lecture sessions through online venues like YouTube, Skype, and similar services. The following discussion reviews the practical applications of lecturing in the classroom, assesses the strengths and weaknesses of this educational delivery method, and identifies creative and effective ways to integrate traditional lectures into today's interconnected, internet-based classroom setting.

The Role of Instructor Charisma and Credibility

Any student who has ever sat restlessly through a long lecture knows that this form of educational delivery is highly contingent on the natural charisma and oratorical abilities of the instructor. When a teacher is capable of captivating an entire classroom through their speaking style, a natural connection is formed which facilitates the absorption of almost any type of educational material, from didactic instructional tutorials to emotionally charged literature discussions. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated that "lecturing style teaching positively affects student performance but that this effect is caused by unobserved teacher characteristics" (Van Klaveren, 2011), and it is this dependence on the lecturer's personality to impart knowledge that separates lecturing from its more clinical instructional counterparts.

The art of effective lecturing involves a combination of communicative skills, empathy with one's audience, and the almost innate ability to guide a classroom's collective experience while also reaching individual students through the same message. Centuries of study have consistently shown that students are most capable of true learning when they are exposed to stimulating lectures delivered by teachers who have built a foundation of credibility (Morrison et al., 2011). By developing a rapport with their classroom that extends beyond educational objectives and into the realm of mutual respect, the most proficient lecturers are afforded daily opportunities to reach students on a personal level while also pursuing a rigorous educational regimen in alignment with statewide curricula.

Learning Styles and the Audio-Visual Lecture

One of the most groundbreaking theoretical advances in the field of instructional design has focused on the concept of individualized learning styles, with students absorbing educational material most readily through either visual, auditory, or tactile/kinesthetic means (Exley & Dennick, 2009). The traditionally delivered lecture is primarily directed toward auditory learners — those students who retain information most effectively through the act of listening and the more complex process of cognitive conceptualizing. Although lecturing is most often utilized as an auditory learning method, the integration of technology into modern classrooms, which has increased exponentially since the early 1990s, has enabled creatively inclined teachers to augment their lectures with visual aids.

The now ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation, which evolved from projector-screen slideshows, represents an optimization of the lecture because this tool combines both auditory and visual learning within a conveniently accessible template. When students are engaged by a well-designed PowerPoint presentation, the lecture delivered vocally by the teacher is automatically reinforced by the viewing of relevant visual images, and this combinatory approach stimulates multiple cognitive processes associated with the more widely recognized styles of learning.