For Patricia D’Amore, the design of lecture halls can be just as distracting as the number of students in it.

‘I really cannot stand the architecture of it,’ said D’Amore, a sophomore international relations major. ‘If one person has to leave, everybody has to get up. There’s absolutely no space to move.’

D’Amore’s dissatisfaction aligns with a growing sentiment across the country. Lecture halls, a college staple, have recently come under scrutiny as colleges begin looking for alternatives to large classes, according to a Feb. 15 article by The Washington Post.

But at Syracuse University, the lecture hall doesn’t seem to be going anywhere in the near future. Dineen Hall, the new building being constructed for the College of Law, will feature five tiered lecture halls of various sizes and two smaller lecture halls, according to the Office of Campus Planning, Design and Construction website.

Many professors, such as international relations professor Terrell Northrup, maintain that there’s a place for many different kinds of classes on college campuses.

‘Different people learn differently, so having a variety of teaching methods available is a good thing, including large lectures for some purposes,’ she said in an email.

She also said having a variety of classroom environments benefits a wide range of faculty members who have diverse teaching styles.

But Laura Cohen, a freshman magazine journalism major, said the lack of interaction makes lecture halls distracting. With so many people, there is little chance to participate.

‘In big lecture halls, it’s easy to just not show up or not pay attention because there are so many people, and the professor won’t notice,’ Cohen said.

Jeffrey Stonecash, a political science professor, said he doesn’t think the size of the room matters. What matters, he said, is how well the course is organized, whether the class is required and the quality of the students.

‘Students learn more when the course is well designed and the students take the initiative to learn,’ he said in an email. ‘When one of that combination is missing, it does not go well.’

Technology has made it easier for students to skip and not suffer the consequences. The Internet is full of information on a variety of topics students are studying, and YouTube has lectures from well-known professors from around the country, according to The Washington Post article.

Matthew Guardino, a post-doctoral student in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said he doesn’t think Google and YouTube will ever replace lectures.

‘One of the primary purposes of a university-level course is to provide a framework within which students can understand a subject and can make sense of the often disconnected information that’s out there,’ he said in an email. ‘Ideally, we also help students develop critical thinking skills, which doesn’t necessarily happen through surfing the web.’

Professor Stonecash said he agrees.

‘The key is to integrate information,’ he said. ‘Too much of education and its relationship to technology is discussed now without focusing on the role of the student in applying himself/herself. Bells and whistles are not a substitute for that.’

jliannet@syr.edu 

Published on March 28, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta