Some content works well with lecture, some content does not. That’s just basic training and learning knowledge.

But to answer your question: I want my pilot to have both practice gleaned through simulators and real life flying PLUS an understanding of facts, information, and theories so that he has a broad understanding of what holds his plain up in the air. Much of that can be gleaned through words.

The answer is clearly both, which, in fact is how most professionals are trained.

Except that trainers don’t get it. Given the choice between doing “group work” for an hour, having the ignorant lead the ignorant, and doing a 15 minute lecture done well, trainers will usually pick the former.

one comment–if i have to sit and listen, i will download the podcast and listen on my own time not sit in someone’s lecture at their convenience.

And I do agree that practice can be internal. The trick for having practice be valuable, I think, is that you generally have to be cognitively active. It’s hard to get someone to that point of being cognitively active/mentally engaged/whatever you want to call it with just lecture. It’s not impossible, but it’s harder. And you’re right that most of the time people don’t know how to do a lecture well, and that’s part of the problem.

I think we make it easier for our learners when we give them multiple ways to wrestle with the content–reading information, hearing information, seeing examples, practicing, reflecting, etc. The recent Dept of Ed meta-analysis on online & blended learning really seems to show that what’s effective is using a lot of different methods together. The online learning worked better than face-to-face learning because it provided both information dumps and practice (among other things). The blended learning was the best option because it combined some of everything.

How about this? Let’s try to look at all the tools available to us and use them all when they’re appropriate. Let’s never do training that consists of one kind of learning–just lecture or just practice. Let’s look for the combinations of methods that work effectively. What do you think? Is that really what you’re arguing for here?

That’s been reiterated in early stuff a la Maltz (psychocybernetics) which may have been the first pop psych book), but also through research into instructional systems of which I was a part long ago, work by sports psychologists, etc.. New behaviors often emerge without “practice” per se, or are largely learned without practice, and then fine tuned through experience.

In short I agree practice is important, but you’d be surprised how powerful and effective invisible mental practice is. I really teaching myself how to cut in ice skating, almost totally through mental practice. I’m sure others may have examples.

As for lectures being information dumps, let me play devil’s advocate. I assume you read books. That’s an information dump, right? Have you learned though the books you’ve read? Of course you have. Now, I’m not saying that’s how we should “train” people.

But I will say that both lecture and reading are valuable learning tools. To throw them out based on dumbass prejudice is a little bit much.

Now, all that I say is predicated on using lecture or any tool effectively. A bad lecture is a bad lecture. Mind you a bad small group sessions is a bad group session, but it’s not so obvious that it’s bad.

I have wasted far more time in small groups than I have in lecture. I’ve often wanted to scream “Just F****** tell me, already”.

But I don’t think you can just do an information dump and call that training, and most lectures are just information dumps. Information without practice isn’t particularly valuable, and it doesn’t matter how that information was conveyed.

The research summarized by Tom Werner in Whatever you do, don’t drop practice is a great example of this. Note that this isn’t talking about avoiding presenting information; all of the conditions included information for students to read. But information + practice is what led to the best results. That does lend some support to the idea of learning by doing, don’t you think?

It seems like everyone would buy in to what you are saying, but they don’t. I am sure you’ve seen the blanket type comments made about any and all lecture on training discussion lists, and so on, and the “everything must be interactive” so no lecture allowed discussions. Which, like all generalizations, have some merit, and don’t have much merit.

I’ll have to hunt down some of the quotes I’ve seen.

I don’t think lecture is the preferred overall method, but as I said elsewhere:

“Isn’t it interesting that today’s trainers tend to reject “telling” as a way of helping people learn, when it is the oldest form of learning interactions for human over centuries”.

“Learning by doing is superior” seems to me such a high-level assertion that I have trouble imagining a productive conversation around it. Perhaps I’m missing something, or maybe I just don’t roll that way.