A little advice for those of us working in higher education

Here, the importance of lecture:

In the age of computer-based learning, lecturing gets treated like Model-T Ford. Don’t be deceived; lecturing remains a staple of the academy and it’s likely to remain so for quite some time. University class sizes have swelled in the wake of budget cuts that have delayed (or canceled) faculty searches. A recent study of eleven Ohio four-year colleges reveals that 25 percent of introductory classes have more than 120 students and only a shortage of teaching assistants has kept the percentage that low. At the University of Massachusetts, 12 percent of all classes have enrollments of over 50 and lectures of over 200 are quite common. As long as universities operate on the assembly-line model, lecturing will remain integral to the educational process.

Here, the ten commandments of lecturing. My favorite:

IX. Thou Shalt Not Lecture Outdoors.
Unless you’re a botanist or geologist there’s no pedagogical reason to teach outside. The first gorgeous day of spring semester will bring a clamor to meet underneath the spreading maple students spy from the window. Don’t do it! That hour will pass with female students tugging at short skirts to maintain modesty, men in khakis seeking not to get grass stains on their trousers, fidgeting when everyone realizes the ground isn’t as comfy as it looks, attention lapses every time someone walks by, the cupping of ears to hear comments carried off by the breeze, and untold amounts of day dreaming. You’d be better off declaring a learning moratorium than trying to teach outside.