Requirements
Instructional Barriers – Materials – How Our Brains Interact with Media
Let's dissect lecture, or speech.
Prior to the invention of paper, or papyrus, human civilization and learning institutions like The Academy in Greece relied on the only transition medium they knew – speech. In ancient times, we truly did have this medium down to an art. We understood why cadence, alliteration, rhyme and rhythm were so necessary. These were the features of speech that allowed the words to “hook” into our brains so we could carry them with us, remember them, and share that knowledge with others. Studies at the academy were not in disciplines or practices such as we know it today, but much of the “curriculum” focused on rhetoric – the art and science of speaking well. If you were going to lead a country, you had to be able to speak to them in a convincing, melodious, memorable way.
Today, we don't practice our speech to this degree. The classroom teacher or university professor who is as rhetorically fluent as a Martin Luther King is indeed a rare find – rarer than self-report would indicate. An over-reliance on lecture, especially lecture that lacks necessary features for effective cognitive retention, can overload learners – literally.
Think of our traffic metaphor. If all the content is delivered along a single highway, two things happen – the audio freeway gets jammed, and the visual freeway is starved for information. Students get both overloaded and under-nourished, and they get frustrated.
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