[regoldste]

As someone who learns almost exclusively by reading, I've always been bemused by the concept of lectures. I've never thought that a professor explained the material better than the textbook or other reading materials that prepared us for class.

To the extent that a professor is expounding on the reading materials--which is what you are really paying for in college--by applying them or synthesizing them, I think those lessons are often better taught through interactive dialogues with students. I'm probably a bit biased from my experience in law school, but I think the socratic method is a particularly strong pedagogical technique, and could be effectively implemented in many undergraduate courses.

[Fomite]

As someone who learns far better by lecture, I've always been bemused by the concept of textbooks. I've never thought that the several hundred dollars I paid for a book got me nearly as far into a subject as listening to the professor.

[regoldste]

I envy you for being so well-adapted to the traditional style of teaching :) On the whole, most people learn better by listening or interacting or doing. I'm certainly the exception in this respect. My brain processes information much differently. It takes me 3x longer to process a sentence read aloud as it would to just read it. Lectures felt like a huge waste of time.

But do you really think that a lecture can cover material as thoroughly as a textbook? In my experience, lectures were supposed to cover part of the material (perhaps some of the trickier parts), but could never be treated as a substitute for reading.

[Fomite]

Well, at this point in my career, the lecture covers things not yet written in textbooks ;)

But generally speaking, especially when you account for the probability that "read the textbook" will result in me either grinding to a halt or just having content slide off, I covered more in lecture.

Textbooks were useful for specific needs for depth, used much more like reference works than a way to learn an entire topic.

[pbhjpbhj]

Agreed. When I was younger I read vociferously and taught myself a lot through books. I can read and pass an undergraduate level course in a subject (it's worked for me before) but to understand really well I need lectures and further interaction (that's worked too!).