Is Lecturing Obsolete?

Lecturing in a Medieval University by Laurentius De Voltolina (14th Century)

Prior to the printing press, books were hand written and extremely expensive. This meant only the rich (or a university) could afford to own a book. Lectures were given so the books would be read in public so others would have access to the content. There was just no other way to push content to a larger group. In the image to the left, an artist depicted a typical lecture being held in a medieval university around 1350 AD. Looks like a dude on the third row has fallen asleep and they are talking in the back left corner. I guess some things never change in the classroom. Lecturing was the main way that content was pushed to the masses until 1439 when a German goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg invented the first mechanical system for printing books. The result of the printing press was printed content that was affordable by virtually the entire population. So, why are we still lecturing? If you are standing in front of the class and reading the textbook you are using teaching techniques that were pioneered in medieval times.

Instructor Led Training Vs Lecturing

Hopefully we are all beyond reading from a book and medieval-style lecturing. I like to think of it as “Intructor Led” which includes a wide range of teaching techniques and content delivery systems used by an instructor to deliver a blended learning environment for the students. Then the question still lingers, could well prepared digital content effectively replace an instructor-led class? I think good digital content could beat a bad instructor.

Computer Based Training (CBT)

Kinda like most people remember what they were doing when John F Kennedy was shot, a hard core gear head probably remembers what they were doing on March 15, 1999. GM made a move in automotive training that was the shot heard around the automotive world. Here is an excerpt from the press release:

Raytheon Training, the training arm of Raytheon Systems Co., will take over the design and development of General Motors service training programs and the training of GM dealership technicians on April 1, said Peter Lord, GM executive director of Service Opera-tions. As part of the plan, GM will close 17 of its 23 technician training centers by year-end and turn over the other six to Raytheon, Lord said.

This was the start of a rush towards replacing OEM instructor-led training with CBT training. Almost all OEMs have replaced some of their instructor-led training with CBTs and some manufacturers have pushed almost all academics to CBT and only use the OEM training facility to evaluate the techs performance. Certain types of training (like hybrid with your potential exposure to 500 volts) really lends itself to instructor-led training! I understand that all Toyota’s hybrid training is instuctor-led.

College Level Online C0uorse

The hot topic in post secondary education over the last 5 years, or so, is online classes. In many schools there is a big push from the administration to offer more and more online classes. They generate a lot of enrollment revenue without putting a strain on phsical resources (class rooms. parking lots, etc) So, what are the best parctices for an automotive online course? Can an automotive class be totally replaced by an online course? I don’t think so, but a web enhanced course is the beswt of both worlds. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of online content delivery and then let’s start a conversation about this challenge.

Pros

• Very well prepared online content will beat a standard lecture any day for delivering raw content to a student. Try to explain something as simple as how a clutch engages/disengages using a white board or show them this video from within an online course. Which one do you think they will remember. And don’t forget they can view this video anytime they want as often as they want.
• Content that is now being delivered in the classroom that could more effectively be moved over to online delivery can open up more time for hands-on work during the class period.

Cons

• There is a natural tendency for an instructor to look at online instruction as a way to reduce class time, not as a way to enhance the overall learning process.
• Hands on skills, that are required by NATEF, and need to be performed under supervision cannot be effectively performed off campus; therefore, most “online” classes will actually be web enhanced classes.

In Summary

So, let’s start a conversation about how we can web enhance automotive courses. I would like to be able to produce a document based on this conversation that could be used by automotive educators as a best practices guide.