Give academics sabbaticals to revamp teaching, urges professor

Lack of innovation rewards mean lousy lectures live on, says Harvard University educationalist behind flipped learning

Published on
April 5, 2024
Last updated
April 5, 2024
Jack Grove
Eric Mazur
Source: IE University
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Reader's comments (5)

#1 Submitted by graff.... on April 5, 2024 - 12:20am
Neither the use of nor the purpose of sabbaticals related to preparing lectures. They are and were designed for research. They have declined as proportions of full-time tenure track faculty have declined. How can a Harvard professor not know this?
#2 Submitted by graff.... on April 5, 2024 - 12:21am
Neither nor Bologna had "large lecture classes."
#3 Submitted by m.... on April 5, 2024 - 11:50am
Somewhat of a missed point here... two rather picky comments but nothing constructive regarding the topic under discussion, namely the usefulness or otherwise of the lecture as a means of instruction. So, let us address the actual point of the article. The idea of the lecture is for students to be able to listen to an acknowledged expert in whatever it is they are studying who (hopefully) witll inspire and enthrall them, not just convey information. However, they still are passive recipients, little better than reading a book on the subject (and books can be inspiring too!). The 'flipped classroom' is supposed to combat this by providing the information in advance then expecting students to be able to discuss or otherwise use the information when they meet with the aforesaid subject expert... but aside from the blithe assumption that the students will put in the work before class, what can you do with a roomfull of students to get them all engaged and discussing the topic in question? It can be quite hard to come up with meaningful work that's pitched at the right level for people new to the information they (hopefully) have just acquired.
#4 Submitted by bursar@... on April 5, 2024 - 4:08pm
Driving a seminar of XX students can be hard in terms of properly structuring it and engaging all XX - but becomes almost impossible as XX has more than doubled with the massification of HE. Not helped by sometimes the ‘teaching team’ for module/course Y not carefully co-ordinating their coverage of material in the seminars and connecting it with the lectures - staff too busy (lazy?!) to do so, and especially where the staffing is casualised labour as so prevalent within mass HE. Part of the solution might be for Us to pledge in the recruitment process just what the max XX will be in seminars and state just what participation is required, what written work expected, and what timely/meaningful feedback given. Then such promises might become enforceable contractual terms and so better protect the student-consumer; while giving academics some leverage against Management where the latter seeks to cut back the resourcing of teaching, leaving the U increasingly exposed to breach of contract claims and the payment of compensation.
#5 Submitted by john.... on April 6, 2024 - 10:00am
In my experience applying the flipped classroom is hard work, and does take a lot of preparation by a "subject expert". The key element for me was identifying challenging open questions, and the use of a voting system, once the students had been set the required reading. In one instance I had to take over teaching construction contract law to a "roomfull" of bored and ill motivated students, expected to study and learn in detail a single form of contract. The flipped classroom approach enabled my colleague and I to lose the boredom, and get students in groups to discuss the relative merits of different forms of contract, and the projected impact of each on a construction scenario, culminating in a presentation by each group where they analysed their findings and made recommendations with reasoning for the most appropriate contract. The process got them reading understanding and analysing contracts they had never seen before, culled from across the world. This gave them appropriate skills to engage in the future and changing world of work.

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