On the CFF coaches' listserv, a discussion thread began in May 2008 about teachers who oppose moving from a traditional lecture approach to 21st century instructional methods. The assertion has been made that high school teachers who lecture should not change their presentaiton stratgies because college professors still use lecture as the most common means of intruction and that high schools should be preparing students for college.

Another explantion for continuing with lecture-only methods was to cover the most material in the shortest amount of time. The following excerpted response was offered by an experienced teacher and CFF coach:

Don McQuade, professor at Babson College, said, "It is not the job of the teacher to cover the material. It is the job of the teacher to get the students to uncover the material." .... I ask [teachers] to become metacognitive about their teaching—"After you cover the material, how much do you think the students retain from your coverage?" "How do you know that they put this material into long term memory?" "How much have you retained from the lectures you were subjected to?" "Would you want your son or daughter to be sitting in your class?" "What information do you dispense to your students that cannot be dispensed by a computer?"
As for the preparing the students to be subjected to boring college lectures, I understand the concern and have thought about that reality many times.

So we prepare the students for bad teaching by employing bad teaching ourselves? I recently heard a piece on NPR radio that many colleges are misleading prospective students about the promises of a college education. Content aside there are studies out there that demonstrate that many college graduates not only do not retain the content, but do not develop higher level thinking skills in college courses in which the professor does just what your teacher describes.

So what is our ethical responsibility here? Do we prepare students for "best bad practices?" Do we hand out alcohol in the high school cafeteria because many college students drink?

....[Some] college professor[s] ... complain about the quality of student who gets to college and is seemingly unprepared. My retort is that in high school we have to educate everyone. Why did the college accept this underachiever? Even more significant is why is the college awarding a degree to the student who enters unprepared? Many college adjunct (and perhaps regular) professors are under pressure to pass students because the college does not want to lose the tuition. Money may have a greater impact on the collegiate level than it does on the public schools.

My final thought on this: I suspect that the good student who has learned well from creative and challenging teachers in high school can readily adapt to being bored in a college classroom. How hard is it to sit in class, listen to the droning, and take notes? Even if one doesn't take notes, there is always the overachiever who will provide the absentee student with the class info. A few years ago a Penn State professor became angry because many of his students did not attend his lectures and simply took his tests and passed. That was because one enterprising student taped his lectures and sold/distributed them to his classmates. And these notes were passed on from year to year. If I were the dean, I would find an easy solution to this problem which would be explained in an office dialogue with the professor.

That's my two cents. Ralph