Fellow simulationists, let’s get real. We should not be the enemy of lecture. Lecture is a very valuable form of education. What we should be campaigning against are bad lectures, and the use of lecture when it isn’t the best tool for the associated attempt at education.
We have all listened to lectures that were horrific and/or lectures presented by speakers who have/had horrific public speaking or presenting skills. But in essence a good lecture can be an incredibly efficient transfer of information. The one to many configuration that is in inherent in the format of lecture can lead to an amazing amount of materials covered, interpreted and/or organized by the presenter to raise the level of knowledge or understanding of the people in attendance.
Like anything else in education we need to stratify the needs of what we are trying to teach and create solutions by which to teach them. With regard to lecture as a tool, we need to find ways to engage the audience into active participation to enhance the comprehension, learning and attention of the participants. There are many tools available for this, some involving technology, some not. The onus is on the presenter to seek out techniques as well as technologies or creative ways to engage people in the audience into an active learning process.
I don’t think of simulation as an alternative, or better way to teach, then lecture. I view lecture and simulation as two different tools available to the educational design process to affect good learning. Much the same way that I would not say a screwdriver is a better tool than a pair of pliers.
Too many times at simulation meetings and in discussions with simulation enthusiasts I hear empirical lecture-bashings if it is old school, out-moded or something lacking value. During these conversations it becomes readily apparent that the person speaking doesn’t have full command of the fact that the main goal is education, not simulation, and that there are many ways to create effective learning environments.
Now lecture can get a bad rap deservedly. Go to a meeting and listen to a boring monotonous speaker drone on and read from their powerpoint slides while not even recognizing that there is an audience in front of them. Unfortunately that is still more common than not at many physician and nursing meetings. Or worse yet, in the new age of converting to flipped classrooms and on-line learning, people are taking the easy way out and moving videos of lectures and plopping them on-line and calling it on-line learning. How pitiful. How painful. The only thing I can imagine worse than a bad lecture in person, is a bad lecture on web based learning that I would have to suffer through.
So I still teach and lead workshops on helping people enhance their lecturing and presentation skills. In part because I continue to recognize that not only will lecture be around for a long time, it should be around for a long time because it CAN be incredibly powerful with the right preparation and in the right hands. Also I continue to recognize the value of seeing modern healthcare education efforts being carefully thought out to understand which tool is best for which phase of learning after careful evaluation of the intended learner group and the topic at hand.
We need to end the silo-like thinking of simulation is better than lecture and convert to a more outcomes oriented thought process that evaluates and implements the appropriate educational tool for the intended educational accomplishments.
So let’s commit to each other to never do a simulation that could be just effective as an engaging lecture, AND lets all agree to never do a lecture that sucks.
