But teaching involves more than lecturing. Learning requires that the students be actively involved. I consider the motivation of student involvement to be the second essential component of effective teaching. It is this second component of effective teaching which I shall emphasize today, but I do not want to discount the importance of the first component, the lecture. While I do not have time here today to address the details of the techniques useful in encouraging student involvement, I would like to point out that the techniques I have found most effective have one common element, scholarly conversation among all in the classroom.
Humans are social creatures, and they learn best in a social context.
Conversation is intrinsically more interesting than a lecture, so it helps keep the students, and the professor, attentive. While the lecture belongs to the professor, the conversation is owned by all in the classroom. Learning becomes the students' accomplishment, not just something imposed on them by a lecturer. Conversation allows the students to test their understanding of newly learned material, expressing it in their own words and receiving feedback from others. Conversation helps us see the studied material from different perspectives.