lecturing is a political activity?

Politics (1995) 15(2) pp. 135-140

Lecturing is a Political Activity? Alan Jenkins

A polemic is presented, arguing that the traditional lecture (in which the teacher .peaks all or most of the time) is both educationally ingective and in part a political authoritarian act. For those teachers and students who accept this interpretation two suggested directions are outlinedone is to change the form of the lecture to include more student centred uctivities. Alternatively st& can develop courses with few or no lectures . In conclusion I argue that aspects of the politics of higher education obstruct teachers and students who wish to teach and learn in these more e$ective ways.

Consider these two descriptions of college classrooms.

First an assessment by Her Majesty’s Inspectors of around a hundred degree courses in the UK across a range of subjects, pre- sumably including politics.

By and large teaching was in the traditional mode of formal lectures and seminars. Lec- tures were usually factual and descriptive. Much (and occasionally extreme) reliance was placed on lecture notes as a prepara-

tion for ... examinations ... With so much regard given to the imparting of information, it was unusual to come across the exposition of opposing viewpoints, the eva- luation of evidence and an attempt to bal- ance and assess it (DES, 1983, p.15, my emphasis).

Next from a study of the undergraduate experience in the USA.

The lecture method is preferred by most professors. With few exemptions, when we visited classes, the teacher stood in pant of rows of chairs and talked most of the 45 minutes. Information was presented that often students only passively received. ?bere was little opportunity for positions to be clarified or ideas challenged (Boyer, 1987,~. 149, my emphasis).

Introduction Writing this article has been a struggle to find a form that is appropriate to its content. For in part my message is a polemic against the traditional lecture. However I know that lec-

Alan Jenkins, Oxford Brookes University.

0 Political Studies Association 1995. Published by Blackwell Publishen, I08 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 l J F , UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. 135

Lecturing Alan Jenkins Politics (1995) 15(2) pp. 135140

turing at people is unlikely to change thoughts or actions. I also recognise that my interpretation of the truth, however carefully considered and strongly held is but an interpretation and that others may see things dif- ferently.

With that introduction I ask you to consider your own interpretation of the ‘truth’. Do the above quotations - which clearly I have selected to make a point - accord with your experience as a teacher or student of politics? What percentage of classroom ‘activity in politics courses is devoted to lectures such as those described above? To the extent you consider they fairly describe what hap- pens, is this essentially an apolitical activity or is the lecture a form of ‘doing politics’ and a form that needs changing?

My argument can be briefly stated. In higher education the lecture is a dominant form of teaching. In most lectures, a teacher speaks for some 50 minutes. The students, whether there be 30 or 500 sit there probably taking notes. This is not a very effective way of teaching in any discipline. I argue this is not just a personal view - it is one that repre- sents the overwhelming conclusion of many research studes. These show that if a teacher’s goal is to teach information, lectures are no more effective than guided reading, while for higher level goals such as understanding ideas, developing analyucal ability etc. much more active student-centred methods are required (Bligh, 1972; Gibbs, 1992). The research evidence demonstrates that

comparisons of the effectiveness of the lecture method with other teaching metho ds... suggests that it may be used appropriately to convey information, but it cannot be used effectively on its own to promote thought or change and develop attitudes without variations in the usual lecture

hierarchical, authoritarian and probably patri- archal. For the form of the lecture states that one person has knowledge, an interpretation of the truth that should be passed on to others. In addition, as most teachers of politics in the UK are male, it reinforces male authority. Clearly this is a much more con- tentious, ideological statement. It is largely a statement of belief, not of fact. In an attempt to reinforce this aspect of my argument I add that teachers of politics often teach issues in which they and their students are politically engaged. For example as a political geo- grapher I used to teach courses on the geography of war and peace whilst a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Labour Party. Yet there were students enrolled in the course who were active in Conservative Party politics and/or enrotled in the territorial army and considering a career in the armed forces. In teaching such issues we should develop methods that do not legit- imate our own political/ideological interpretations.

What is to be done?

For those readers who consider there is (possibly) validity or value to the argument I have presented - the obvious question is what should be done? I now proceed to try and demonstrate that there are two broad directions for teachers to take. One is to change the form of the traditional lecture. The other is to abolish or diminish the role of the lecture in Politics courses. In conclusion I consider some of the political problems s& and students face in adopting these methods - for adopting them requires cultural changes of both staff and students and political decisions to encourage and reward such changes.

technique (Bligh 1972, p.13, my emphasis).

Perhaps more significantly to readers of this journal 1 contend that the form of the lecture is in part a political activity. It is often

Changing the form My argument partly rests on the view that the dominant form of the lecture is where the

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Politics (1995) 15(2) pp. 135-140 Lecturing Alan Jenkins

teacher speaks most or all the time. There are a number of ways in which one can slightly change or r a d d l y transform this traditional form. Here I will just sketch in some of them, as Gibbs (1988) provides clear descriptions of 53 such techniques!

Minor modifications include techniques such as the following. Get students to $rst clarify their own views by writing them down and/or perhaps by discussing them with their neighbour. Thus I could start a lecture on Britains policy re nuclear arms by getting students to analyse a series of conflicting state- ments as to the value/impact of British ownership of nuclear arms on its security. They could be asked to identify two of these they agreed with and two they disagreed with; to write brief notes as to their reasons for these judgments and then compare their views with their neighbour. Other techniques require students during the lecture to do some activity. This could be either to read through their notes so far, to compare them with a neighbour or to analyse a set of statis- tics or a passage from a text.

Towards the end of a lecture you can give tasks such as ‘what were the three central ideas/arguments in the lecture?. After students have written this down you can present what you considered were your three central ideas. Perhaps more interestingly you could get students to read through their notes and write down the three central things about the lecture they did not understand. Then they work with the one or two students sitting next to them to help each other to better understand what they had not quite understood. They could then be asked to individually write down as clearly as possible (and hand in to you) their difficulty in understanding one of the issues discussed in the lecture. You spend the first 5-10 minutes of the next lecture going through key recurring problems the students identified.

The activities described accept the basic form of the traditional lecture but slightly modify it. Often only one such technique would be used in a particular lecture. Alter-

natively, as one develops confidence in using such techniques one can radically transform the lecture so it has little resemblance to its traditional form. Thus in what I call a structured lecture (Jenkins, 19921, the class time (whether it be 60 minutes or three hours) is broken up into segments. In some of these the teacher talks, but these are limited to 5-10 minute expositions. For most of the class time students work individually or in small groups on tasks set by the teacher. As students get used to this way of learning they can work relatively independently at quite long and complicated tasks, including ones they (partly) devise. This method can be used with large groups and in the conventional tiered lecture theatre.

These modifications, whether slight or radical can be justified on two grounds. Educa- tionally they help students to reach higher levels of understanding than the traditional lecture can achieve (Bligh 1972; Gibbs 1992). For they require students to relate what they are being told to their own developing understanding. Also politically they shift some of the power in the classroom to the students. These methods provide some space for students to shape their own interpretations. Thus in the lecture that opens up with a series of quotations on the impact of nuclear arms on Britain’s security one is both empha- sising that there are very conflicting views on this issue and legitimating students’ own initial perspectives on this issue.

Abolishing or changing the role of the lecture Traditionally the lecture was seen as central to course design in higher education. My impression is that in many courses they still are - staff often describe courses in terms of x lectures and y seminars. Even if you dont accept my ideological critique of the traditional form of the lecture, the research evidence as to its educational limitations suggests that at most it should play a very

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Lecturing 0 Alan Jenkins politics (1995) 15(2) pp. 135-140

subsidiary role in Politics teaching. Here I sketch in some ways this can be achieved.

Lectures are often used to convey information and an interpretation of that information. Yet the research evidence is that giving students guided reading such as textbooks, journal articles or specially designed course readers are just as effective at achieving these modest goals. Replacing lectures by guided reading is thus one alternative and has the added benefit of enabling students (many of whom are now part-time andor having to work their way through college) to study when and where it is appropriate for them.

One radical way to redesign Politics courses is to focus course design on the time/ activities students spend outside class. Here most of the staff time is spent in developing paper/IT based learning materials, devising assignments which develop high level learning but enabling students to work independently from the teacher either by themselves or in well designed group activities.

In some such courses (as in many Open University programmes) there are no required classroom sessions. However in most higher education institutions (including the Open University) this method of course design does give great emphasis to the role of limited classroom sessions. These are designed to achieve the high level intellectual goals university education is designed to develop. These classes may often involve students discussing assigned reading. For example, Adrian Leftwich has described how he taught a range of optional politics courses at York University which had students reading extensively and carefully for the weekly seminar. One way he ensured that reading was done was to require each student to produce for each seminar a six page critical essay. These ‘were tickets of admission to the seminars (Leftwich, 1987, p. 319). His discussion of this method is set in the context of political considerations of free- dom and constraint.

Such courses will generally require students to present and discuss work they have done outside class and help them prepare for sub-

sequent independent work. My own course on the political geography of Thatcherism involved students in groups of 4-5 researching outside class the impact of post 1979 Con- servative governments’ policies on the geography of the coal and steel industries, educational provision etc. They were largely assessed on spoken (and written) presentations of their findings to their peers. I videoed the presentations and to obtain a grade the students had (outside class) to watch the video recording and to write a group critique of their presentation (Jenkins and Pepper, 1987 and 1989).

My colleague, David Pepper teaches what is probably the most intellectually demanding course I have encountered. The subject matter is environmental philosophy. Students are supported to learn outside class through carefully chosen reading, audio and video tapes and other materials. For the students often the most demanding element of the course is the classroom Court of Enquiry sessions. Students divided into teams, have to debate issues such as ‘Animals and plants have a right of existence of themselves: their value is not just a function of the usefulness to human beings’. Each such student team has an advocate who for that session has to organise and lead that team’s case and call on students to present researched and rehearsed evidence. These witnesses are then cross- examined by the other team’s advocate. For those cross-examined this is what is both most difficult and most contributes to higher learning. For under cross examination it soon becomes painfully clear whether they really understand what they are meant to argue. As this is assessed, later groups generally sig nificantly improve in both performance and levels of understanding. On at least one occa- sion in the course all students have to act as an advocate. Students have to argue the brief/ ideological position they are given - and indeed the following week they may have to argue from a totally different philosophical perspective (Jenkins and Pepper, 1987 and 1988).


Politics (1995) 15(2) pp. 135-140 Lecturing 0 Alan Jenkins

In courses such as the above the occa- sional lecture may be given. But they will have a very different role than the traditional lecture. They may act as frameworks to guide the out of class course work. They may help pull together the student-led activities. Thus in my course on the geography of Thatcher- ism I gave but two lectures. Halfway through the course, after the student teams had star- ted their reading on the impact of Thatcher- ism I gave a (broken-up) lecture on how political scientists and geographers had tried to analyse the spatial impact of state policies. Then towards the end of the course I lec- tured picking out key themes from the student assignments and guided them to what I expected in the take home examination which drew on those assignments. But those two lectures were but 90 minutes or so out of the 30 classroom hours in a course that was designed for students to work 90 hours outside class.

In conclusion: political obstacles Staff (and students) who wish to teach and learn in the ways I have indicated will face political and cultural obstacles. Students of political culture will know how political reform has to recognise the culture it seeks to change. The cultural expectation in Britain (and elsewhere) is that the lecture (and the lecturer!) is what is expected. Students may initially resist and wen try to reject courses which require them to read before they come to class and which see them as active shapers of their learning. They may prefer the acquiescent political culture of silently sitting in a lecture hall.

Staff wishing to teach this way may find the system is designed to hinder or even prevent such methods. University and departmental regulations may specify courses and staff workloads in terms of contact hours and fail to recognise and allocate resources to sup- port courses that require staff to spend most

of their time shaping and supporting students working outside class.

There are other political obstacles. Govem- ment has rapidly expanded UK higher education but done so by cutting resources allocated to individual students. The result is an explosion in class sizes. Though I have argued that it is possible to change teaching methods to accommodate these changed student-staff ratios (Gibbs and Jenkins, 1992), I do recognise that many of the methods that I advocate to replace the lecture (eg Courts of Enquiry) do require small classes. However, government ministers play down the problems and insist that standards (ie the percentage of students getting a first and upper second) have been maintained and even increased.

However, other political obstacles have been essentially created by academics. Adopt- ing the methods I describe often does require considerable thought and effort by staff. But in most institutions their abilities as a teacher is not what will really count in decisions on who is appointed and promoted. The internal politics of higher education institutions ensure that students are generally excluded from these decisions and their interests sub- ordinated to academic preoccupations with a narrow view of research.

Relatedly, to effectively limit or even abolish the traditional lecture does require well designed textbooks, CDRoms, interactive computer based learning and course readers. Producing them requires considerable effort. Soon a small group of political scientists will be judging the scholarly quality of all politics departments throughout the UK. This 1996 Research Assessment Exercise is a game for high stakes. The rewards for those who win are high in terms of prestige, power in the discipline and money. In the rules of the exercise, largely shaped by academics, what will really count are ‘original investigations published in high prestige journals and monographs. Textbooks and other ‘teaching materials’ are ‘excluded from the RAE’ (HEFCE, 1994, p.7). By contrast academics,

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bturing 0 Alan Jenkins politics (1995) 15(2) pp. 135-140

and particularly those in the powerful elite institutions have ensured that far less prestige and resources depend upon the Teaching Quality Exercise. (An interesting assignment for Politics students would be for them to research the politics of their departments’ comparative responses to the research assessment and teaching quality exercises!) Gwen that political context, ‘rational poli-

tical scientists will get on with their research, and teach by getting out their lecture notes prepared a few years ago, ad lib a few topical references and then get back to serious busi- ness. So as a parting shot I want to take the question mark out of my title. I think that I have demonstrated that lecturing is in part a political activity.

Bligh, D. (1972), Whats the Use of Lectures? Har- mondsworth, Penguin.

Boyer, E L (19871, Colkge: 7 k Udergraduute Exrperience in America. New York: Harper and Row.

D.E.S. (Department of Education and Science) (1983), Degree Courses in the Public Sector of Higher Educarion. London: Her Majestys Station- ery Office.

Gibbs, G. (1988), 53 Interesting nings to Do In Your Lectures, (third edition). Bristol: Technical & Educational Services.

Gibbs, G. & Jenkins, k (1992), Teaching Luarge C k e s in Higher Education. London Kogan Page.

Gibbs, G, (1992), Improving the Quality of Stu- dent Learning. Bristol , Technical and Educa- tional Services.

Higher Education Funding Council (I%), 1996 Research Assessment Exexhe RAE 96 1/94, Bris- tol.

Jenkins, k & Pepper, D. (1987), Enhancing Empkybility and Educational Oppor#unity: A Manual on Teaching Communication and Groupworrt! Skills in Higher Edw;a#ion. Birming- ham: Staff and Educational Development Asso- ciation.

Jenkins, k & Pepper, D. (1988), ‘Enhancing Stu- dents Employability and Self Expression: How to teach oral and groupwork skills in geography’, Journal of Geograpby in Higher Edwation,

Jenkins, k (1992), ‘Active learning in structured lectures’ in G. Gibbs and k Jenkins, Teaching Large Classes in Higher Education. London: Kogan Page.

kftwich, k (1987), ‘Room for Manoeuvre: a report on experiments in alternative teaching and learning methods in politics’, SCudies in H i g k Edu- cation, pp. 311-323

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lecturing is a political activity?

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