Different approaches to teaching
It’s not just what you study that differs. It’s how you study it.
Teaching methods vary from one university to another. There are rarely ‘lessons’ as such. In fact, there are at least four different teaching methods that take the place of lessons:
- Lectures: A lecturer, tutor, professor or ‘don’ stands at the front of a hall and transfers his notes to yours through the process of speech. Might be anything from 15 to 200 students.
- Tutorials: Occasionally one-to-one, but more usually a small group of students discussing with a lecturer, tutor or whatever.
- Seminars: The most lesson-like approach and a cross between a lecture and a tutorial; usually 5 to 20 students.
- Practicals: Experimental work, usually restricted to sciences.
These aren’t the only way of doing it though. Far from it. There’s field work, for instance — which, in the case of agriculture or archaeology often does indeed involve working in fields — but, more generally, it’s any out-and-about project work. There’s also distance learning (sending and receiving instructions and resources through the post or email), virtual learning (web-based teaching) and so on.
Every university and, indeed, every course uses its own mix of these — and other — methods. Alongside being taught, students are supposed to do a lot of learning for themselves, just plain studying (hence the name ‘student’) in books, on the web or wherever is appropriate to their subject.
Last updated on: 25 April 2008