In Defense of the Lecture: Revisiting and Reassessing Its Place within Management Pedagogy

ABSTRACT

Long the staple or go-to technique in management education, instruction via the lecture has fallen on hard times. Dismissed as professorially heavy-handed and lacking creativity, the lecture has yielded considerable ground to experiential, service, applied, and active learning techniques. In this essay, we question this shift away from the lecture toward the aforementioned trending instructional methods. In coming to the defense of the lecture, we explore the benefits afforded by the lecture for students and the professorate. Drawing on the maxim that what is old is new again, we contend that the lecture still deserves central billing in the management student experience. To do so not only enhances the occupational prestige of the faculty, but also enhances student learning and prepares students for career success in the professional management world. To close, we explore how the lecture format can best be preserved in management education and the modifications needed to realize its many benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogical reform
• student-centered
• professorial role
• occupational prestige

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Evan H. Offstein

Evan H. Offstein is a Professor of Business Management at Frostburg State University. His research interests include military ethics and leadership, the changing professorial role, higher education policy, and executive coaching/consulting. His research has been published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education, Journal of Management Education, Group & Organization Management, and Human Resource Management Journal among others. He can be reached at [email protected].

Rebecca M. Chory

Rebecca M. Chory is an Associate Professor of Business Management at Frostburg State University. Her research interests include workplace relationships, organizational justice, antisocial organizational behavior, student-instructor relationships, and the changing professorial role. Her research has been published in the Journal of Management Education, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, International Journal of Business Communication, Communication Education, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, and Business and Professional Communication Quarterly. She can be reached at [email protected].