In this era of the Internet, there is no longer any reason for one person (the lecturer) to be the ‘font of all knowledge’ and to stand at the front of a room at and talk at people for an hour or two. Most university lectures are a compilation of facts and analysis – sometimes presented in a reasonably interesting way, but usually really boring. Instead the lecturer could easily provide this information to students in much more engaging and user-friendly formats, for example by using the interactive capabilities of online applications.
And if lecturers insist on continuing to do face-to-face lectures, they should at the very least record their lectures so that students can podcast or vodcast them.

Respond | Cheer this | 4 months ago (Jan 02, 03:49AM)

In most cases, exams are a poor means of assessing a student’s learning in a course. There are much better ways of assessing learning – for example using project-based learning and work-place based learning. Exams allow a student to demonstrate that they can regurgitate facts and they encourage teaching staff to become lazy about how they design their courses. End exams and make teachers be more innovative about their approach to learning and assessment.

Respond | Cheer this | 4 months ago (Jan 02, 03:44AM)