Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

What is diferent about online study? 9 
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GOODBYE “CHALK AND TALK” 
Traditional university lecturing has been known as “chalk and 
talk”, even though lecturers gave up using blackboards with chalk 
many years ago. However, the phrase represents a style of lectur-
ing that really should have been dispensed with a long time ago. 
Te “chalk and talk” method of delivering lectures is where the 
teacher stands at the front of the class, talks “at” the students, 
writes things on a board, or shows slides that merely repeat what 
is said. 
To understand why this is so outdated, it is worthwhile consider-
ing the history of universities. When these seats of learning began 
several hundred years ago, the professors were considered to be 
experts of such high regard they were somewhat distant from stu-
dents. Many of the students at that time were illiterate and had to 
learn by having the words of the great professor read to them. Te 
person who did this was known as the “reader” who stood at a 
“lectern” on which the professor’s book rested. In universities to-
day, there are still “readers” who are one rung down the academic 
hierarchy from a professor. Tere is, though, an enormous difer-
ence with today’s students. Tese days, all the students can read, 
so the “readers” do not have to read the professor’s work aloud. 
Back in those early days of university, the professor would sit on 
a raised chair on the platform as the textbook’s pages were read 
aloud by the reader. Te professor was known to sit in “the chair”, 
and even today, hundreds of years later, professors “hold the 
chair” of the subject for which they are an expert. In some ancient 
universities, such as Cambridge, there are still remnants of old 
lecture theatres where you can see the professor’s chair and the 
lectern from which the reader gave the lecture. 
However, if you pause and think for a while, “chalk and talk” lec-
turing is pretty much what was going on over 800 years ago in 
universities when most students could not read and had to learn 
by listening. In reality, this method of lecturing ought to have 
been abolished in the post-Victorian era, when everyone learned 

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