Is Lecturing Racist?
Scott Freeman, Elli Theobald,
Inside Higher Ed,
Sept 14, 2020
I admit that I am predisposed to agree that active learning would be more equitable than the lecture. But if you're going to say imflammatory things like 'lecturing is racist' you'd better be able to back it up. This article, however, proves no such thing, and the evidence cited shows an entirely different point, specifically, that in one particular institution, "Underrepresented students were less likely than well-represented peers to persist in chemistry if they performed below a C−." It barely even mentions lectures. The authors reason that since all chemistry courses are lecture based, and underrepresented persist less well in these courses, that underrepresented students in lecture courses persist less well. That's not even close to a valid inference, and the results could be explained equally well by saying underrepresented students at that particular institution have bad teachers, biased markers, poor lab sessions, inadequate support, few role models, and or insufficient funding. Also, as an aside, I would think that authors lecturing us about inequality could use the term 'frosh' in their article instead of 'freshmen'.
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