Teachers from Socrates up to the present have taught in much the same way: by lecturing in person to a group of listeners. There is a lot to recommend this approach, not least that we are all familiar and comfortable with it, and it’s simple to do: take people interested in learning (or who are required to be present), add someone who knows the material, and presto! You have a class. Everything else is a frill. Add to this that we know the large majority of in-person communications is non-verbal, and lecturing has a power that goes beyond the mere conveying of data or information.
But there are two major drawbacks of in-person lecturing: it imposes a de facto geographic monopoly on education, and a one-size-fits-all mentality on teachers and students alike. Let’s look at the geographic monopoly first, and then segue into differentiated instruction for each student.
