I would like to say that predictions about the death of the lecture as a mode of knowledge transmission are as old as the lecture, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. As far as I can tell, people only started predicting the death of the lecture with the proliferation of the book printing and (upper class) literacy. For example, here is a prediction from the late 18th century:
"People have nowadays…got a strange opinion that everything should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken Lectures were once useful, but now, when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary."
The luminary behind these words is none other than Samuel Johnson, a man of letters if there ever was one. (Cited here.) And, you know, I kind of agree. I typically prefer reading a book to listening to a lecture. I don't have the attention span necessary for following a lecture, and my thoughts will start wandering off as I start doodling, scrolling, or playing a game on my phone.
I have learned, however, that I am in the minority. I don't listen to podcasts either, can't stand talk radio, and despise audiobooks. I much prefer the interactive nature of the printed page, where you can read at your own pace, flip forwards and backwards, and stop to think. You are also not distracted by the author's voice. I mean the author’s actual, physical voice, from their vocal cords. You may very well be distracted by the author’s imagined voice produced by their imaginary vocal cords operating inside your own head as you read their writing. Yes, that’s quite the image. You’re welcome. Anyway, where were we, something about distractions?
Why do people even go to lectures? I guess it varies, but much of it is really about being there. Next week, I plan to attend a lecture here at NYU, largely to be seen by my colleagues as being there, but also to force myself to listen to what is said, see how people react to it, and hear which questions are asked. I also look forward to chatting with my colleagues before and afterwards; the actual content of the lecture may or may not be what we talk about, but it will certainly be a relevant backdrop. I will probably be reading something else or playing a game on my phone during part of the lecture, listening with one ear. And: this is fine. All of these are perfectly good reasons and behaviors.
Back in my undergrad days, back before I had a phone to scroll or play on, I used to doodle in my notebooks while listening with varying attention to the lecture. The “notes” I took from my philosophy classes are largely drawings of bizarre creatures sprinkled with the names of philosophers and their arguments, sometimes illustrated in cartoon form. Sometimes I would chat with whoever sat next to me, sometimes read a book, and often I would daydream. I have fond memories of looking out the window at the wind rustling the leaves in autumnal Lund while listening to lectures on epistemology. I remember the room I was in when I first felt the force of Quine’s incommensurability thesis and was gripped by an urge to vanquish it in single combat. I would not have had that memory if I had just read about it in a book. But I did also read about Quine’s incommensurability thesis in a book, and that made me understand it much better. (But can I really compare these two modes of learning?)
Maybe you read this and think that I’m down on lectures because I’m a bad lecturer. But I’m a pretty good lecturer, at least according to what my students say. Well, at least those few students that actually fill out the course satisfaction surveys. They say that my lectures are engaging, funny even. I think that’s true. They also say that I’m disorganized and chronically late with feedback and grades. Also true. But we were talking about lectures here (fun), not grading (boring). I strongly believe that me being such a bad listener makes me a better lecturer. My inability to focus on what lecturers say means that I’m constantly paranoid that nobody is listening to me, so I do what I can to remain a strong attractor in attention space. Switch things up. And again. Yes, I have learned a decent model of my students’ attention, but beyond that, I feel the strong need to avoid boring myself as I lecture. It’s a dialog with the audience/students, whether they say anything or not, and above all it’s a live performance. It’s a tension between improvisation and the strict structure of the slides. But actually–did you know this?–you can edit the slides as you lecture. I usually do. That’s why I never give students my slides in advance, they are not finished until after the lecture.
I remember the discussions around 2012 or so, when Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were all the rage. Various colleagues of mine, including some senior and very accomplished professors, argued that university teaching as we knew it was on its way out, to be replaced with prerecorded videos and integrated assessments. Because while we might be decent lecturers ourselves, we couldn’t compete with the real pros, who also had real resources to prepare and produce their courses. Sal Khan, Andrew Ng, these kinds of people. Because lectures are infinitely reproducible, economies of scale would win out.
This hasn’t happened. So far. MOOCs exist, and many students watch these lectures as a complement to their regular lectures, while many others don’t. Many others who are not students also watch such lectures, and I’m not even sure there’s a meaningful boundary to be drawn between MOOCs, podcasts, and general influencer content. That’s fine with me, I don’t really care about any of that. I’m just noting that these online videos fulfill another purpose than the in-person lecture.
As an aside, the MOOC idea was itself largely reheated leftovers. Distance education via snail mail has existed for at least a century or so. In many countries, educational content has been delivered via TV and radio, sometimes including whole school curricula as well as university-level courses. Apparently, there was even at some point a business in recording lectures on VHS tapes and mailing them to learners. The more things change…
Reliable assessment of online-only courses was always a tricky thing, and I suppose that AI developments have now completely killed off any chance of simultaneously scalable and reliable online assessment. I mean, the LLM can just do your homework, dude. The only kind of online assessment you can AI-proof for the foreseeable future is likely oral exams. But they don’t scale well, which negates the whole idea of online classes being infinitely scalable. So we continue lecturing, mostly in person.
See what I did there? I waited more than ten paragraphs before mentioning AI, and then I didn’t mention it in the context of AI systems replacing lectures. I bet that what you thought this piece was going to be about when you started reading. And what can I say, asking Claude or Gemini to explain things to me is pretty nifty. The ability to ask follow-up questions is even niftier. I have learned things that way, and as certain people never tire of saying, this is the worst these models will ever be. Still, as someone who cares about accuracy, I go to a source I have some reason to trust to check any fact I care enough about.
If you have followed me this far, I suppose you expect some kind of conclusion here. Not sure this is that kind of post, though. I guess my conclusion is: to each their own. Modes of knowledge transmission are largely complementary. Most people seem to like to listen to other people talking, and I like to talk. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are lectures. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.