Lecturing: Why I Don't Like It | Pedagogy and Teaching | Ellie Mackin Roberts 

Right there with you. I much prefer a seminar format or even what is currently called "flipped classroom" pedagogy. If I really need to lecture, I can pre-record it. Considering how auditory/kinesthetic of a learner I am, I do find value in having the opportunity to hear the material and physically write notes while hearing it. But there's no reason it needs to be live. Otherwise I just assign reading. And then spend class time actually *doing* something with that information. We're on the same page for exams, too. I think papers and projects are far better tools for assessing what students got out of something. (Once I start teaching pre-licensure nurses, I'm apparently going to have to get over that, as I'll be preparing them to ultimately take a licensing exam. Of course, I tend to think that thing needs a radical rethinking too!)

I'm an US-based English PhD student, and I haven't had lectures my entire educational career. In undergrad, I went to a small, liberal-arts college, so most of my courses were seminar-style--unless I took a course outside of my major. It was so strange for me to come to my graduate institution and find out that the undergrads are lectured to. I'm like you: I just can't see the point!

I think this is a wonderful idea. I am an older masters student studying History and English in the United States. I do not have any lectures, it is all discussion, writing papers and reading. I prefer it this way. My oldest daughter is an undergraduate in a classical studies program at a private university in the Bay Area. All of her coursework is a seminar based on readings and there are no exams. She loves it!! She has taken a few courses outside of her major that are lectured and cannot stand it. She says she can never go back to a program that is lecture based.