When will we ever escape the rut of outdated pedagogy?

Despite the tidal wave of omicron cases threatening to overwhelm the UK’s health system, education secretary Nadim Zahawi has reiterated that universities must continue with face-to-face teaching, including lectures. If they revert to online provision, students can complain to the Office for Students about not getting value for money, he told The Sunday Times.

The frustration felt by many in the academic community over such a claim is overwhelming. The view of online lectures as a second-rate alternative is, in my opinion and experience, an outdated and inaccurate view of how effective learning can take place.

In a large lecture theatre of between 200 and 500 students, I can pretty much guarantee that not a single student will raise their hand to ask a question. The lecturer is therefore disseminating information to a passive audience. Even with interactive tools that allow polling, if a student’s inquisitive nature is sparked and they have a question, it is very difficult for them to rise above the anxiety associated with speaking up in front of such a large audience, particularly at the beginning of their course. It is commonly acknowledged that anxiety is an increasing problem among university students, exacerbated by the experience of the pandemic. Yet the government urges us to revert to an antiquated method of teaching that only increases it.

This is not the only issue with traditional, large-scale lectures. A single lecturer can no longer embrace all the current thinking on a subject, due to the ever-evolving nature of knowledge development. When I was young, we had to resort to the trusted encyclopedia, but now students can read academic articles online and find out the core information for themselves. In such an era, the idea of the lecture as a conversation and exploration of content, rather than as a dissemination of information, is surely a more advanced, efficient and effective method of engaging with content. The role of the academic is to take that knowledge and encourage and facilitate students to question, explore and add depth to their understanding – not just to repeat what they have already found (or could find) for themselves.

Contrast the large, face-to-face lecture with the experience of online lectures. Most online platforms offer students the chance to contribute to an ongoing chat. My own students have been incredibly active in raising questions, adding contributions to debates and sharing their thoughts about the topics covered. This has often led to both me and them following up the lecture by exploring some of the issues raised, which in turn leads to deeper learning, both for them and for myself as an academic. It has led to research projects in which they can actively play a role, and it has fed into discussions with wider networks. If students are happy to share their thoughts and questions with the lecturer, surely this leads to more interest and investment in their subject in the longer term?

The over-reliance on outdated methods of learning reflects what I believe is a key problem with education more generally in the UK. My own children report that their learning of subjects at GCSE and A level is now much more about how to structure an exam answer than it is about nurturing an interest to pursue that subject further. The result is that they begin to see learning as training in how to pass exams, with very little relevance for their life post-school or college. Do we really want the same to be said of university education? I hope not.

This is not to say that face-to-face learning for teaching small groups, such as seminars and tutorials, is not valuable – it certainly is. In smaller groups, students feel more able to contribute and actively engage in activities that allow them to develop their knowledge further. But where large lectures are concerned, it feels like government ministers are completely out of touch with the advances that have been made in pedagogy. It is a significant backward step for higher education to be forced to revert to them.

Wendy Garnham is reader in psychology at the University of Sussex, a National Teaching Fellow and co-founder of the Active Learning Network.