Does Lecturing need defending?

Just read this feature in Change magazine by Mary Burgan: In Defence of Lecturing.
I'm a bit stunned, not that I'm hearing that (I hear that from some colleagues frequently), but that I'm reading such an ill-reasoned piece in what's usually a good magazine.

Lecturing has its place in the classroom - as one of a variety of pedagogical methods to choose from, depending on the situation. Where it becomes a problem, and where many seem to become defensive, is when it is the only technique that is used.

The problem with Dr. Burgan's piece is not that it makes a case for the advantages of lecture in the classroom, but that it uses rhetorical devices more worthy of talk radio than an academic. The article creates 'straw-man' opponents - characterizing the views of active-learning proponents as extreme and silly. Yes, I would have a problem with any type of learning strategy where the student got no guidance at all from the instructor and there was no structure to the class. But is the only alternative to that full lecture? Most faculty who hold the middle ground would disagree.


She quotes Pinker, stating that constructivism is "a mixture of Piaget's psychology with counterculture and postmodernist ideology." If you can't produce a sound counter-argument, resort to name-calling.

She seems to feel that it is neccesary for students to be in lecture to get the experience of being in the presence of a master: "Even more fundamentally, I believe, students benefit from seeing education embodied in a master learner who teaches what she has learned." Did I miss something - is an instructor who uses techniques other than lecture not doing the same thing?


Blech. I'd better stop before I start using the same rhetorical techniques. (If I haven't already.)