- Email: [email protected]
Resuscitating the lecture
INVISIBLE TO THE EYE
RICHARD B. GUNDERMAN, MD, PhD
Resuscitating the Lecture Lecturing has acquired a bad name. Because the lecture has been around for centuries, it tends to fare poorly in an era when novelty is highly esteemed for its own sake, and we reflexively assume that old things are obsolete. Driven in part by a natural appetite for new technologies, radiology educators tend to assume that we must be capitalizing on the latest interactive computer software and display gadgetry to be doing our jobs well. In a quest to stay on the cutting edge, we seek new ways to package what we know. Imagine a grant program established to promote excellence in radiology education. Which applicant would stand a better chance: one who proposes to make educational material available on personal digital assistants, or one who wants to take courses in rhetoric to become a more effective lecturer? Lecturing is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, we expect educators to interact with their learners, and we want learners to be actively engaged with one another. In our medical school curricula, small-group instruction and problem-based learning are supplanting the old model of large auditoriums of learners listening to a sage on the stage. On the other hand, pedagogical models that conceptualize education as information transfer have become suspect. We now believe that education should be learner centered, not teacher centered, and should invite students to participate more in their education as active inquirers. Pity the poor lecture, which seems to cast learners in a largely passive role, as mere recipients of information being spouted at them by talking heads. Say “lecture,” and we imagine scores of people slumber516
ing peacefully in a darkened room as a speaker intones a monotonous lullaby. In fact, however, reports of the lecture’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. The lecture is not dead yet, though it certainly does not get much respect. To give the lecture critics their due, there is no contesting that an entirely lecture-based curriculum is likely to provide a suboptimal learning experience. Learners need a chance to discuss what they are learning, to try their hands at what lecturers are describing, and to pose questions on obscure or perhaps even contentious points. Yet it is equally valid to say that a curriculum totally devoid of lecturing is often suboptimal. A poor lecture is a waste of time, but no more so than a poorly designed educational software package. Yet a good lecture, perhaps even a really great lecture, provides a glorious educational opportunity for those in attendance and can exert a profound effect on how learners think and practice. Many radiologists, particularly the successful ones, are called on to deliver lectures from time to time. Some in academic environments may be called on to lecture on a weekly or even daily basis. The audiences for such presentations may include medical students, radiology residents, fellow members of radiology departments, technologists, nurses, physicians in other medical fields, members of hospitals’ administration, and even civic organizations. That education is vital to the future of radiology and the patients it serves is an assertion that no one contests. That the lecture should remain a central pillar of our educational programs is to some a radical idea. If radiologic education
is to thrive in the years to come, we must strive to create an educational ethos in which good lecturing is highly esteemed, and all radiologists recognize the importance of enhancing their performance as lecturers. To excel, we need to see clearly the target we are trying to hit. What is the target of a great lecturer? In my view, great lecturers are not operating with information transfer as their model. They do not think of themselves as downloading information from their own heads into the heads of their audiences. Great lecturers are attempting to achieve something much grander and much more difficult. They are attempting to enable learners to see their minds, to watch them think. Of course, if their own thought processes are muddled, their lectures are not likely to be very good, but that will be true in any case. To lecture well, one must think well. This means not only understanding the subject matter at hand but recognizing what is really most intriguing and worth knowing about it. Great lecturers, like great leaders, are attempting to enable learners to see their minds at work. Mere information can be transferred in any number of ways, but true understanding requires not merely telling learners what you know, but letting them see how you think. The most important outcome is not the quality of answers they give but the quality of questions they ask. If lecturers merely aim to transmit the information contained in slides or handouts, then they can simply e-mail participants copies and let them read the information. Great lecturers aim to accomplish something more than transmission. They aim to stimulate the curiosity,
© 2004 American College of Radiology 0091-2182/04/$30.00 ● DOI 10.1016/j.jacr.2004.02.008
Invisible to the Eye 517
the reasoning, and the criticism of the learners. They are not telling learners things. They are inviting them to become involved in a conversation that, if successful, will carry on after the lecture has ended. A great lecture is invigorating. People in the audience are watching the speaker, jotting down notes, leaning forward in their seats. A great lecture provokes questions from the audience, permitting interaction between audience and speaker and between members of the audience. Unfortunately, some venues effectively discourage such interaction by preventing interaction during the presentation and allotting only a small amount of time at the end for questions. At a great lecture, people linger in the room, talking about what they have heard, not only with the speaker but with one another. Great lectures do more than merely inform learners. They challenge learners, asking them to look for the first time at things they are unfamiliar with or to look at things they think they know very well from a novel point of view. A great lecture is not a 1-hour event. It is a reflection of years, perhaps a lifetime, of dedication and reflection. I have seen great lectures delivered extemporaneously, without prepared notes or visual aids. The people who delivered such lectures were not showing their audiences products they had created over a few days or weeks. They were pausing to open windows on burning questions, quests with which they had been engaged for a very long time. On the other hand, I have seen lectures in which every gesture, every pixel on the projection screen, seemed to have been precisely choreographed, yet the lectures fell flat. A great lecture requires sincere intellectual engagement leavened with passion. No
one should expect to deliver a great lecture on a topic that he or she would just as soon leave as take. Is there only one way to lecture well? No. It is no more true to say that there is only one way to lecture well than to say that there is only one way to write well, or to paint well, or to parent well. Some great lecturers are bold and even histrionic, whereas others are subdued. Some are humorous, whereas others are serious. Some are erudite, whereas others are folksy. Great lecturers do, however, share in common a resolute conviction that what they are talking about is important and that their audiences would be better radiologists, or more effective leaders, or even wiser human beings if they took the topics seriously. Great lecturers believe in what they are saying, and they genuinely care about whether their audiences believe in it, too. They are inspired by their topics, and they are not afraid to let the depth of their conviction shine through. They are not necessarily proselytizing, but they are not merely briefing their audiences either. There is something almost conspiratorial about a great lecturer, in the sense that the audience feels that the speaker is letting them in on a secret. To give a really great lecture requires an audience with the potential for greatness. The fact that learners are unengaged is not necessarily a sign that a speaker is no good. For example, if I gave the same lecture to my son’s fifth grade class that I usually give to fourthyear medical students, they would not respond favorably. The same obtains in reverse. The speaker and the topic must be tailored to the audience. Likewise, it is very difficult to give a great lecture to a group of people who are utterly indifferent to the topic or who are
actively hostile toward the point of view being presented. Hence, organizations that invite lecturers and lecturers themselves must be sensitive to the nature of the events and triangulate the three elements of speaker, topic, and audience if people are to leave feeling the lectures were great. Speakers can enhance such prospects by getting to know their audiences beforehand and keeping what they say relevant to the group. Although there is no simple lists of dos and don’ts for a great lecture, there are some behaviors that lecturers should generally strive to avoid. One of these behaviors is repeatedly apologizing. By apologizing for their lack of preparation, the poor quality of their images, or simply for boring people, lecturers in effect invite their audiences to conclude that the lectures are not very good. Audience members are entitled to the assumption that lecturers are doing the best they can, and speakers should not disabuse them of this. To do otherwise implies a lack of commitment. Lecturers need to recall that learners have paid good money, or traveled far, or taken time out of their busy schedules to attend. They want the lecturers to do good jobs, and they want to believe that they have invested their time and money well. Another pitfall is the failure to take an interest in the audience during the presentation. If people in the audience get the impression that the lecturer does not even know that they are in the room, they are likely to feel as though they might as well get up and leave. It can be frustrating to attempt to carry on a conversation with someone who never looks at you, and the same is true for learners listening to a lecture. Lecturers who never look up from their texts, or who never look away from the screen, give
518 Invisible to the Eye
members of the audience the impression that they are merely talking at them, rather than talking with them. Better to inject some spontaneity from time to time, not merely to look at but actually to see individuals in the audience and perhaps even to respond to how they are responding. People tend not to think as highly of lectures beamed in electronically as those that take place in person, and lecturers should make it apparent that they know the audience is there. A final widespread mistake is to become too reliant on technology. Well-conceived visual aids are crucial for most presentations in a highly visual field such as radiology. However, some lecturers become so
enamored of their technical wizardry that they forget what they are really trying to say. They so emphasize form over substance that their messages ring hollow. We all know what it is like to be pleasantly surprised by a technological gimmick and to find it fascinating for the first 5 minutes or so, but by the end of the hour to find it more irritating than illuminating. Even today, it can be more educational to watch a lecturer write or draw on a chalkboard than to marvel at one information-overloaded slide after another. We need to remember that technology is only a tool and never allow ourselves to become the tools of our tools. In sum, the lecture is not dead. It
remains one of the best educational formats we have. All of us can recall some really great lectures we attended. It is true that some lecturers are more gifted than others, but every one of us has the potential to improve his or her performance as a lecturer. If interpreting images and performing procedures requires study and practice, why should we be surprised if excelling as a lecturer does as well? When it comes to professional advancement and the health of a profession, public speaking can be a powerful asset, and it would make sense for our professional organizations to make available more opportunities for radiologists to learn and develop their full potential as lecturers.
Richard B. Gunderman, MD, PhD, Indiana University School of Medicine, Department of Radiology, 702 Barnhill Drive, Room 1053, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5200; e-mail: [email protected].
RICHARD B. GUNDERMAN, MD, PhD
Resuscitating the Lecture Lecturing has acquired a bad name. Because the lecture has been around for centuries, it tends to fare poorly in an era when novelty is highly esteemed for its own sake, and we reflexively assume that old things are obsolete. Driven in part by a natural appetite for new technologies, radiology educators tend to assume that we must be capitalizing on the latest interactive computer software and display gadgetry to be doing our jobs well. In a quest to stay on the cutting edge, we seek new ways to package what we know. Imagine a grant program established to promote excellence in radiology education. Which applicant would stand a better chance: one who proposes to make educational material available on personal digital assistants, or one who wants to take courses in rhetoric to become a more effective lecturer? Lecturing is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, we expect educators to interact with their learners, and we want learners to be actively engaged with one another. In our medical school curricula, small-group instruction and problem-based learning are supplanting the old model of large auditoriums of learners listening to a sage on the stage. On the other hand, pedagogical models that conceptualize education as information transfer have become suspect. We now believe that education should be learner centered, not teacher centered, and should invite students to participate more in their education as active inquirers. Pity the poor lecture, which seems to cast learners in a largely passive role, as mere recipients of information being spouted at them by talking heads. Say “lecture,” and we imagine scores of people slumber516
ing peacefully in a darkened room as a speaker intones a monotonous lullaby. In fact, however, reports of the lecture’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. The lecture is not dead yet, though it certainly does not get much respect. To give the lecture critics their due, there is no contesting that an entirely lecture-based curriculum is likely to provide a suboptimal learning experience. Learners need a chance to discuss what they are learning, to try their hands at what lecturers are describing, and to pose questions on obscure or perhaps even contentious points. Yet it is equally valid to say that a curriculum totally devoid of lecturing is often suboptimal. A poor lecture is a waste of time, but no more so than a poorly designed educational software package. Yet a good lecture, perhaps even a really great lecture, provides a glorious educational opportunity for those in attendance and can exert a profound effect on how learners think and practice. Many radiologists, particularly the successful ones, are called on to deliver lectures from time to time. Some in academic environments may be called on to lecture on a weekly or even daily basis. The audiences for such presentations may include medical students, radiology residents, fellow members of radiology departments, technologists, nurses, physicians in other medical fields, members of hospitals’ administration, and even civic organizations. That education is vital to the future of radiology and the patients it serves is an assertion that no one contests. That the lecture should remain a central pillar of our educational programs is to some a radical idea. If radiologic education
is to thrive in the years to come, we must strive to create an educational ethos in which good lecturing is highly esteemed, and all radiologists recognize the importance of enhancing their performance as lecturers. To excel, we need to see clearly the target we are trying to hit. What is the target of a great lecturer? In my view, great lecturers are not operating with information transfer as their model. They do not think of themselves as downloading information from their own heads into the heads of their audiences. Great lecturers are attempting to achieve something much grander and much more difficult. They are attempting to enable learners to see their minds, to watch them think. Of course, if their own thought processes are muddled, their lectures are not likely to be very good, but that will be true in any case. To lecture well, one must think well. This means not only understanding the subject matter at hand but recognizing what is really most intriguing and worth knowing about it. Great lecturers, like great leaders, are attempting to enable learners to see their minds at work. Mere information can be transferred in any number of ways, but true understanding requires not merely telling learners what you know, but letting them see how you think. The most important outcome is not the quality of answers they give but the quality of questions they ask. If lecturers merely aim to transmit the information contained in slides or handouts, then they can simply e-mail participants copies and let them read the information. Great lecturers aim to accomplish something more than transmission. They aim to stimulate the curiosity,
© 2004 American College of Radiology 0091-2182/04/$30.00 ● DOI 10.1016/j.jacr.2004.02.008
Invisible to the Eye 517
the reasoning, and the criticism of the learners. They are not telling learners things. They are inviting them to become involved in a conversation that, if successful, will carry on after the lecture has ended. A great lecture is invigorating. People in the audience are watching the speaker, jotting down notes, leaning forward in their seats. A great lecture provokes questions from the audience, permitting interaction between audience and speaker and between members of the audience. Unfortunately, some venues effectively discourage such interaction by preventing interaction during the presentation and allotting only a small amount of time at the end for questions. At a great lecture, people linger in the room, talking about what they have heard, not only with the speaker but with one another. Great lectures do more than merely inform learners. They challenge learners, asking them to look for the first time at things they are unfamiliar with or to look at things they think they know very well from a novel point of view. A great lecture is not a 1-hour event. It is a reflection of years, perhaps a lifetime, of dedication and reflection. I have seen great lectures delivered extemporaneously, without prepared notes or visual aids. The people who delivered such lectures were not showing their audiences products they had created over a few days or weeks. They were pausing to open windows on burning questions, quests with which they had been engaged for a very long time. On the other hand, I have seen lectures in which every gesture, every pixel on the projection screen, seemed to have been precisely choreographed, yet the lectures fell flat. A great lecture requires sincere intellectual engagement leavened with passion. No
one should expect to deliver a great lecture on a topic that he or she would just as soon leave as take. Is there only one way to lecture well? No. It is no more true to say that there is only one way to lecture well than to say that there is only one way to write well, or to paint well, or to parent well. Some great lecturers are bold and even histrionic, whereas others are subdued. Some are humorous, whereas others are serious. Some are erudite, whereas others are folksy. Great lecturers do, however, share in common a resolute conviction that what they are talking about is important and that their audiences would be better radiologists, or more effective leaders, or even wiser human beings if they took the topics seriously. Great lecturers believe in what they are saying, and they genuinely care about whether their audiences believe in it, too. They are inspired by their topics, and they are not afraid to let the depth of their conviction shine through. They are not necessarily proselytizing, but they are not merely briefing their audiences either. There is something almost conspiratorial about a great lecturer, in the sense that the audience feels that the speaker is letting them in on a secret. To give a really great lecture requires an audience with the potential for greatness. The fact that learners are unengaged is not necessarily a sign that a speaker is no good. For example, if I gave the same lecture to my son’s fifth grade class that I usually give to fourthyear medical students, they would not respond favorably. The same obtains in reverse. The speaker and the topic must be tailored to the audience. Likewise, it is very difficult to give a great lecture to a group of people who are utterly indifferent to the topic or who are
actively hostile toward the point of view being presented. Hence, organizations that invite lecturers and lecturers themselves must be sensitive to the nature of the events and triangulate the three elements of speaker, topic, and audience if people are to leave feeling the lectures were great. Speakers can enhance such prospects by getting to know their audiences beforehand and keeping what they say relevant to the group. Although there is no simple lists of dos and don’ts for a great lecture, there are some behaviors that lecturers should generally strive to avoid. One of these behaviors is repeatedly apologizing. By apologizing for their lack of preparation, the poor quality of their images, or simply for boring people, lecturers in effect invite their audiences to conclude that the lectures are not very good. Audience members are entitled to the assumption that lecturers are doing the best they can, and speakers should not disabuse them of this. To do otherwise implies a lack of commitment. Lecturers need to recall that learners have paid good money, or traveled far, or taken time out of their busy schedules to attend. They want the lecturers to do good jobs, and they want to believe that they have invested their time and money well. Another pitfall is the failure to take an interest in the audience during the presentation. If people in the audience get the impression that the lecturer does not even know that they are in the room, they are likely to feel as though they might as well get up and leave. It can be frustrating to attempt to carry on a conversation with someone who never looks at you, and the same is true for learners listening to a lecture. Lecturers who never look up from their texts, or who never look away from the screen, give
518 Invisible to the Eye
members of the audience the impression that they are merely talking at them, rather than talking with them. Better to inject some spontaneity from time to time, not merely to look at but actually to see individuals in the audience and perhaps even to respond to how they are responding. People tend not to think as highly of lectures beamed in electronically as those that take place in person, and lecturers should make it apparent that they know the audience is there. A final widespread mistake is to become too reliant on technology. Well-conceived visual aids are crucial for most presentations in a highly visual field such as radiology. However, some lecturers become so
enamored of their technical wizardry that they forget what they are really trying to say. They so emphasize form over substance that their messages ring hollow. We all know what it is like to be pleasantly surprised by a technological gimmick and to find it fascinating for the first 5 minutes or so, but by the end of the hour to find it more irritating than illuminating. Even today, it can be more educational to watch a lecturer write or draw on a chalkboard than to marvel at one information-overloaded slide after another. We need to remember that technology is only a tool and never allow ourselves to become the tools of our tools. In sum, the lecture is not dead. It
remains one of the best educational formats we have. All of us can recall some really great lectures we attended. It is true that some lecturers are more gifted than others, but every one of us has the potential to improve his or her performance as a lecturer. If interpreting images and performing procedures requires study and practice, why should we be surprised if excelling as a lecturer does as well? When it comes to professional advancement and the health of a profession, public speaking can be a powerful asset, and it would make sense for our professional organizations to make available more opportunities for radiologists to learn and develop their full potential as lecturers.
Richard B. Gunderman, MD, PhD, Indiana University School of Medicine, Department of Radiology, 702 Barnhill Drive, Room 1053, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5200; e-mail: [email protected].