Google the words “further education” and the search engine may well finish your sentence with “financial crisis”.

News headlines frequently warn of a looming funding crisis in the sector and recent forecasts suggest that as many as 70 colleges are “financially inadequate”.

How exactly can delivery costs be cut, then, without sacrificing educational quality?

One answer is to introduce (or reintroduce or expand) the “lecture” format, as a means of teaching large groups of learners with fewer staff and at a lower cost.

As well as being cost-effective, lectures - as opposed to classroom-based sessions and tutorials - are also a good use of precious learning space, enabling colleges to reduce the cost of their estate.

So why, if lectures are a cost-effective means of teaching, do so few appear on learners’ timetables in FE? It may be because the lecture has become synonymous with didactic teaching of the worst kind: laborious, long-winded teacher-talk leading to passive, not active, learning. But does it have to be this way? Do lectures have to be wholly didactic and, what’s more, is didacticism really the poor relation of active learning?

Lectures: watch and learn

Students like and learn from online “lectures” all the time. They watch YouTube videos that explain how to apply make-up, bake cakes, build impressive structures on Minecraft, perfect their golf swing, and so on. They watch TED Talks, too, which inspire them on topics ranging from “Your body language shapes who you are” to “How to spot a liar”.

Students rely on quality instruction in their private lives: they watch online lectures, learn from them, then emulate what they’ve seen and heard, challenging themselves to improve by increments. So why not enable them to do likewise at college?

Timetable regular lectures as a means of instructing learners on new knowledge and skills, then follow this up with planned opportunities for independent practice and structured self-assessment.

Spark critical thinking

The benefits of the lecture format do not begin and end with cost-cutting. Lectures - like YouTube videos - can teach learners the art of attention. They can show them how to listen respectfully and carefully to others; something that may be in short supply in an age of instant gratification.

Lectures are also an exercise in mindfulness because learners must be attentive - active not passive - if they are to follow the lecturer’s argument and act on its central premise in their own work. Lectures can provide learners with their first crucial step towards developing a capacity for critical thinking, because a good lecture offers not a simple recitation of facts but the careful construction of an argument.

Note-making (rather than note-taking) is also an art form worth learning, and lectures provide plentiful opportunities for this. Participating in lectures and developing note-making skills enable learners to reason, analyse, and weigh statements and arguments, developing a sense of curiosity and wonder.

This is an edited article from the 3 February edition of TES. Subscribers can read the full article here. This week’s TES magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here

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