Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1995

The Uses of Educational Technology in the University Address by Sir Eric Albert Ash M r. C h a n c e l l o r , V i c e - C h a n c e l l o r , M e m b e r s of the U n i v e r s i t y C o u n c i l , d i s t i n g u i s h e d gu sts, ladies and gentlemen: It has fallen to me to speak on behalf of the honorary graduates today — I presume on a criterion of alphabetical order. Be that as it may, we would all like to express our very warm thanks to this great university for the honour you do us on this day — a day which we will always remember. I have chosen the uses of educational technology as my theme. This is not because I know very much about it. However an academic career does offer one very great benefit: Irrespective of one's initial state of ignorance, one is allowed to study almost any topic and still earn a modest living in the process. Moreover, having acquired just a little knowledge, there is usually an opportunity to talk about it — perhaps to a set of students — or exceptionally, as today, to such a very distinguished audience. Advances in technology have transformed our existence over the past two centuries, and at an ever increasing pace in the last few decades. Until very recently there has, however, been little impact on university teaching. The dominant teaching modality is still the lecture, with the lecturer not infrequently turning his back on the audience to write on ablackboard and students recording what they see. In most universities the teaching process also includes tutorial sessions with relatively small groups of students. It is a scene which would not have surprised Plato had he been able to foresee the future. Now I am an engineer, and one of our fundamental beliefs is that 'if it's working, don't fix it'. In my own experience, tutorials are effective — there is good learning and good teaching in small groups. In contrast lectures do not work very well. That is of course a broad generalization. There are certainly i nd i v i dual lectures which are brilliant, exciting occasions and which leave the audience inspired. It is more difficult to sustain that level of brilliance in a typical university 30- lecture course. Nor is the transmission of knowledge and understanding much helped if for the students it happens to be the third lecture of a morning, or worse, the first after lunch! Of course matters are greatly helped if the lecturer is enthralled by the subject and if she or he can convey some of that enthusiasm in the lecture. I am sure that the new graduates here assembled w i ll have had predominantly that experience in their undergraduate courses. Nevertheless, the concept of the lecture as the major component of a higher education is in my view deeply flawed. Why do tutorials work well and lectures less so? I believe the reason to be that in a tutorial something is demanded of a student — to participate, to respond, whilst in a lecture nothing at all is demanded. The role of the student is purely passive. The task of the lecturer, this fact notwithstanding, is to strive to engage the interest of each student, to encourage each student eagerly to follow his line of thought, to share in his 48th Congregation 10