Specifications

Learning Spaces Guidelines
Large Lecture Theatres: 35
Section 7: Large Lecture Theatres
These spaces are defined as having fixed seating and vary greatly
in capacity. Larger examples often have raked floors to improve the
view and audibility for students.
There have been significant shifts in what is recognised as good
teaching practice and nowhere is there more controversy and
resistance to change than in the conception of the large lecture.
However a number of contributory factors have made many
academics question the validity of verbally delivering content to
hundreds of students packed into passive rows. These factors
include:
the technological alternative methods for ‘conveying’
content (VLE, podcasts, ‘flipping the lecture’, personal
lecturecasting)
increased expectation from fee-paying students that their
learning experience will be engaging and not passive
greater student numbers without corresponding increase
in resources and increasing capacity pressures put upon
University estate
abundant research published on more effective methods of
teaching
technology such as Electronic Voting Systems that
permit the large scale face-to-face sessions to be much
more interactive and discursive therefore exposing the
comparatively limited effectiveness of didactic lecturing and
the inherent problems of using a traditional lecture theatre
for any different mode of teaching that diverges from the
one for which it was designed
ubiquity of web connected mobile devices enables learners
to simultaneously cross-reference or contextualise what the
lecturer is presenting resulting in a change of the expertise
dynamic and increased tendency to encourage discussion
within the session
ability for students to attend the live session virtually by
means of synchronous online collaboration tools or live
lecturecast streaming
ability for students to ‘skip’ the live session and ‘catch up’
via the lecturecast recording – after all if the lecture is a
passive experience for the student then passively watching
a recording would an equal value experience
This questioning of the role of the traditional lecture would need
to inform the design of any new teaching space developments.
However where an existing lecture theatre is being refurbished there
may also be scope to consider adjustments that would better future-
proof the space.
TASK
The purpose
of a large
lecture
theatre
7.01