English Argumentative paper

Ericka Evangelista Mr. V. Primo English 102 23 Aug 2012 Modified Form of Lecture as a Solution to Traditional Lecture Method For students, there’s a common notion that earphones, iPods, and games are a need during lecture classes. It has been defined that lecture classes are often boring and difficult since teachers are the only ones who speak in it. It also gives a tendency for a student to sleep, daydream and imagine in class which often results in unproductiveness. We can improve the quality of education by using the modified form of lecture which includes other methods like short talks by the students, the case studies and the horseshoe method. According to Melissa Kelly in her article “Lecture as a teaching method”, traditional lecture method is a teaching method wherein the professor focuses on the transfer of information other than anything else. I think in this class the professor or the teacher would talk about his lesson and go through it in class without having other activities mixed in it. Victoria Melbourne who wrote in her essay entitled “Advantages and disadvantages of lectures” that the traditional lecture method can give out substantial amount of information to students. In my experience, during a lecture class teachers can cover more area using a lecture method since she would go into presenting and explaining the information needed in class. At the end of the class, questions would be entertained thus saving more time and discussing more topics. Unpublished and hard to find reading materials can be presented by the professor during a lecture class (CIRTL). In our “Understanding Media and it’s content” class, we are given by our professor a set of readings every week. She gives us the text needed for us to be able to understand the lecture discussed in class. This is an advantage for us because the readings she presents are the ones that are hard to find. It is also an advantage because we would already have a background for the next lecture class. Dr. Francine Racho, vice-dean of school of communications, in an interview said that 3with lectures she is able to plant key ideas and process it for learning. I think that this is an advantage since the teacher could give more emphasis to the important ideas so that the students would be able to remember and know it well. Since the professor is knowledgeable about the topics she would be discussing, she could plan her lesson very well. She could go slow at the hard ones and discuss lightly the easy ones. However, there are also disadvantages in a traditional lecture class. Donald Bligh in his book What’s the Use of Lectures stated that Traditional lecture method is good but not enough to supply the needs of students (251). Mel Schanke and her fellow writers found out in their study “Suprising student choices of traditional vs. nontraditional learning approaches in an undergraduate organizational behavior couse” that a single teaching method wouldn’t be enough because students learn in different ways. They proposed that a way to fix this problem is to involve students in learning, thus making classes more efficient and effective. One of the reasons why lecture is not adequate is because it fails to allow the professors to gain feedback (Melbourne). I agree with what she said and I think that teachers and professors in a lecture class are deprived of gaining feedback since the class is limited into a one way learning only. The teachers are the only ones who can give out the information while the students just accept whatever information is given by the professor. This does not make the professor gain anything. The professor can also brag about his knowledge about certain subjects which would bore the students instead of making them learn. It is also bad since the professors could not assess the knowledge gained by the students. He would just learn that he is ineffective in teaching after the exams are over, thus making the students fail instead of helping them learn. “There’s nothing wrong with using lectures as long as the teacher makes sense in the class.” Victoria Melbourne on her essay “Advantages and disadvantages of lectures” wrote that another reason why traditional lecture method is not adequate is because when students are passive they tend to forget the information more quickly. Since the student’s attention is focused on something else the information given out by the lecturer does not really stay on their minds. Thus making the lecture ineffective. Melbourne also says that “lecture presume that all students learn at the same pace and are at the same level of understanding.” Each one of us has a different stride in learning. We have different IQ’s and different learning levels. So a professor can’t simply assume that we are at the same pace with our other classmates. Professors should help us individually with our subject problems and he should repeat the lesson altogether if most members of the class do not understand it. Lastly, lecture is rarely adequate because it is in need of effective speakers (Melbourne). In an interview with Edralin De Vera, a teacher at La Salle Greenhills, he said that there’s nothing wrong with using lectures as long as the teacher makes sense in the class. As I have noticed more and more professors with PhD teach without really making sense. So most of the time it’s the lecturer’s fault not really the method’s fault. The speakers should be able to express and explain well the topic that he should be discussing to make the students learn in every possible way. A proposed solution to Traditional lecture method would be the Modified lecture method. According to Charles West book The Modified Lecture: A Useful Technique for the Teacher, A modified lecture method is focused on sharing information while in groups, involving discussions and personal experiences. I think a Modified lecture method is also a teaching method wherein lecture is the base of the class but it is supported by other different teaching methods like the Horseshoe method, Short talks by the students method and the case-study method. The Horseshoe method is a teaching method which usually consists of four to twelve members with the objective to make decisions, evaluate, think analytically and to apply principles (Bligh 218). In my opinion this method is effective since the voices of the students would be heard. It also encourages teamwork and socialization to students. It makes students think on their own and it allows their teacher not to spoon feed them with everything that they need to know. Another method that could supply the insufficiency of lectures is the Short-talks by student method. As stated by Donald Bligh, this method is useful in creating professionally oriented students in the field of oral presentations (278). This method I think is very effective since the students would get a first hand experience in presenting information to a crowd. This is also a good method since it encourages the students to think critically and express themselves very well. It hones their communication skills and it gives them a boost of confidence to speak in front of an audience. This would help them as well in their job presentations in the near future. “Thesis Writing can widen the knowledge of students due to constant reading.” The last method that I would propose is the Case-study method or Case discussion. It is commonly known as making the “Thesis paper.” For Bligh this method demands a deep analysis and a thorough research on the subject given (277). According to ResearchPaperz.net’s essay “Advantages of thesis writing”, thesis writing can widen the knowledge of students due to constant reading. They also said that it could develop critical thinking which is needed to survive the competition in the market today. Most students like me find it difficult to do this method since it requires a lot of time and effort. But I actually agree that this is an effective method since researching and writing a paper about a certain subject makes the student more familiar and knowledgeable in that subject matter. It also enables them to improve on their writing and reading skills. Their work can also be of help to other students who might want to continue the research that they have started. The modified lecture class has benefits. Kevin Ramakrishna mentioned in his essay “New Study Confirms Benefit of Non-traditional Teaching Methods” that a traditionally taught group’s average scored 41% compared to the experimental group, also same as the modified lecture method, scored 74%. It is also said in his essay that the traditional covered all the topics to be discussed while the experimental or modified lecture method did not manage to cover all but still scored higher than the traditional one, thus this tells us that the modified lecture method is better than the traditional one. A benefit of having a modified lecture class is it makes the students active in class since it’s interactive. According to Craig Lambert’s “Twilight of Lecture”, students learn three times more in an interactive learning class, thus making it more effective than a traditional one. It also makes the student benefit more. He also stated there that interactive classes diminish the gap between the male and female. I think that it is important not to discriminate between the genders. We could not limit girls to being good in writing and guys to being good at Mathematics. Some girls could be good at Math while some guys can also be good at writing. The professors in an interactive class tend to see the capacity of both genders equally which in turn gives equal opportunities to both genders. Another benefit of the modified lecture class is that it makes the professor learn too with the insights of students. The traditional lecture system damages the professor because it reduces feedback thus limiting learning to one way only (Daniels 746). In a modified lecture class the professor can interact and learn with the students instead of him doing all the work. This can also widen the information sharing within a class which can encourage clarification, comments and more ideas. I think this method also encourages students to prepare well in class. They are challenged to do better in their short-talks, case studies and group reportings so they tend to research more and give more insights in the given subject. “Traditional lecture method is good but is rarely an adequate method” Traditional lecture method is good but is rarely an adequate method. We need to use the modified version of the lecture method to make sure that the inabilities of the traditional method would be completed by the modified one. Methods like Horseshoe, Short-talks and Case-study are just examples of the many methods that can be used with the lecture method to complete its effectiveness. In the end I think that it is still up to the educator on which other teaching methods he would add to the lecture method so that his students would learn and gain more from him. Works Cited Bligh, Donald A. “Teaching Methods to Use with Lectures.” What’s the use of Lectures?. United States of America: Lyons Falls Turin Book. First Edition. 2000. 260-281. Print. CIRTL. “Advantages and Disadvantages of the Traditional Lecture Method.” CIRTL Diversity Institute Resource Handbook. Web. 24 July. 2012. De Vera, Edralin. Personal Interview. 5 Aug, 2012. Kelly, Melissa. “Lecture as a Teaching Method.” About.com. Web. 8 Sept 2012. Lambert, Craig. “Twilight of the Lecture.” Harvard Magazine: 2012. Web. 24 July. 2012. Melbourne, Victoria. “Advantages and Disadvantages of Lectures.” Online posting. Australia. Web. 24 July. 2012. Racho, Francine. Personal Interview. 16 Aug, 2012. Ramakrishna, Kevin. “New Study Confirms Benefit of Non-Traditional Teaching Methods” bestpractieceslegaled. May 2011. Web. 8 Sept 2012. ResearchPaperz.net. “Advantages of Thesis Writing.” ResearchPaperz.net. Web. 9 Sept 2012. Shnacke, Mel E et al. “Surprising student choices of traditional vs. nontraditional learning approaches in an undergraduate organizational behavior course.” FPO. 2004. Web. 8 Sept 2012. Skwire David, and Harvey S. Weiner. “College Lectures: Is Anyone Listening?” Student’s Book of College English. 13th Edition. Boston: Pearson. 2012. 744-747. Print. West Charles. “The Modified Lecture: A Useful Technique for the Teacher.” United States of America: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Vol 43. 1968. Web. 8 Sept 2012. Evangelista 8 Evangelista 9