Is it normal for UK lecturers to read from notes?

I'm Swedish, and in Scandinavia overall, professors and lecturers have PhD's and are knowledgeable enough in their subjects and classes to use the short notes on the board and talk, in an interactive way, about their subjects. At my RG university in London (I study English lit), the lecturers plow through notes, reading verbatim, reading quickly with annoying jargon and whilst I don't inherently mind this and I've been getting firsts/near-firsts in everything, it feels like a waste of money. I was just wondering whether this is the norm in the UK or whether it's a sign that the university itself and its lecturers aren't that good?

Reply 1

yoyo polo

13

mine always read the slides and the occasional lecturer might add parts in here and there

Original post by angelyns

I'm Swedish, and in Scandinavia overall, professors and lecturers have PhD's and are knowledgeable enough in their subjects and classes to use the short notes on the board and talk, in an interactive way, about their subjects. At my RG university in London (I study English lit), the lecturers plow through notes, reading verbatim, reading quickly with annoying jargon and whilst I don't inherently mind this and I've been getting firsts/near-firsts in everything, it feels like a waste of money. I was just wondering whether this is the norm in the UK or whether it's a sign that the university itself and its lecturers aren't that good?

Don't all your lecturers & profs in your UK course also have PhDs? I think sometimes some very junior lecturers or very old ones (who no longer care) use a lot of notes. I think it can vary by university a lot, and an RG uni is no measure of quality given the RG is mainly about postgrad research rather than anything that impacts undergrad teaching. The RG is a very broad church, some are exceptional, some are incredibly mediocre - and depending on the subject, many are no better than some non-RG unis.

But from my experience throughout undergrad/postgrad/PhD, albeit in a different subject and at a top uni, most would use the slides for key points/diagrams but would generally just speak without any notes. Only exceptions being in very quantitative modules with lots of mathematical proofs, often they'd have all the derivations in front of them and then they'd expand on what's there - but that's understandable in my opinion.

Reply 3

gjd800

20

Pretty normal in a lot of cases. I used to use a lot, confidence thing really, and sometimes also a symptom of having to lecture in an area which is not your primary research focus at very short notice. These days I don't bother as much (mainly because I tend to get tapped up to teach my primary focii) but I do type up a summary sheet for students to use after the fact.

Reply 4

MAKER12

9

I think its normal, many of mine use notes

Reply 5

hotpud

18

Original post by angelyns

I'm Swedish, and in Scandinavia overall, professors and lecturers have PhD's and are knowledgeable enough in their subjects and classes to use the short notes on the board and talk, in an interactive way, about their subjects. At my RG university in London (I study English lit), the lecturers plow through notes, reading verbatim, reading quickly with annoying jargon and whilst I don't inherently mind this and I've been getting firsts/near-firsts in everything, it feels like a waste of money. I was just wondering whether this is the norm in the UK or whether it's a sign that the university itself and its lecturers aren't that good?

It's a fair point. Why don't you put that to your lecturer. Ask the question, "Why do you turn up to read out your notes when you could just publish your notes and we could read them in our own time?" Given you are a paying student I think it is more than fair you hold your teachers to account.

Reply 6

Aglarien

10

My fav lecturers never read notes and I generally dislike ones that do. (Scotland, English Lit)

Reply 7

cowra

4

Original post by angelyns

I'm Swedish, and in Scandinavia overall, professors and lecturers have PhD's and are knowledgeable enough in their subjects and classes to use the short notes on the board and talk, in an interactive way, about their subjects. At my RG university in London (I study English lit), the lecturers plow through notes, reading verbatim, reading quickly with annoying jargon and whilst I don't inherently mind this and I've been getting firsts/near-firsts in everything, it feels like a waste of money. I was just wondering whether this is the norm in the UK or whether it's a sign that the university itself and its lecturers aren't that good?

Honestly it really does depend on the lecturer. I've had lecturers that read word for word what's on the slides and you might have well just put on text to speech to get the same experience as sitting in one of their lectures. But I also have lecturers that are very interactive and if you don't pay attention to what they're saying then you'll miss out important information 🤷*♀️

Hi!

As above, it can really vary. It's definitely the norm and not unusual for lecturers to read from notes word for word. But most worth their salt will be able to improv it from memory, and expand on the content. I found the best way to get around lecturers like this (especially when they speak in monotone, oh god) is to ask questions and engage in the content. Then they have to reply without reading and oftentimes are far more interesting speakers as a result.

Do you take seminars with them? They might be more engaging there as well.

Rebecca Pearce
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.richmond.ac.uk

Is it normal for UK lecturers to read from notes?

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