My experience of university teaching began 45 years ago when I began my undergraduate degree. 'Advanced' technology then consisted of dustless chalk. I recollect that first year lectures were given by full professors and were supported by small group tutorials. Slide and film projectors certainly existed but were rarely used; sound recording was possible but machines were large and bulky and lectures were never recorded. Television was in its infancy and video recording was still incubating in the research lab. Overhead projectors came later. Since there were no electronic calculators, we used slide rules and log tables. There were also no personal computers or the Internet, and we searched for literature using abstracting journals or card indexes.

My time in universities has been a period of massive growth in the availability of new technologies for teaching and learning. We now have video recordings, DVDs, personal computers, the Internet, Google and email. Lectures can be recorded and rerun at home. Information on any topic can be found almost instantaneously. With such advanced technology, why are we still lecturing? Is it an effective technique for facilitating learning in comparison to what is available?

My discipline is engineering and there are challenging concepts particularly in the early years. Often, only a few students truly understand the lectures as they are presented; most students merely use the lectures to acquire content which may be better understood later through private study, collaborative learning or small group learning activities. My observation is that most lecturing in engineering faculties these days is mere content delivery. Inspiration and explanation-two good reasons for lecturing-are rare and have become increasingly so with the advent of certain technologies.

In my view, we have gone backwards to when it was possible to photocopy typescript onto overhead transparencies. Though legibility has improved markedly, spontaneity and engagement with students declined. Things got worse with PowerPoint; there are now fewer words per frame. Thus students' attention is drawn towards the visual and they fail to listen to what is being said. This being the case, why not deliver the content in some other ways, for example, through a personal computer (PC)? Students can then choose when they receive the content and the faculty member is not tied to a lecture schedule. The time saved could be used to address difficult concepts in small group classes. I know many lecturers will argue that they use PowerPoint to sustain interactivity (this can be done using tablet PCs as blackboards), however it rarely happens. Currently, lecturing as a system of content delivery (in undergraduate engineering and the physical sciences at least) is imperfect and inefficient.

In my own experience, I became aware of alternatives some 15 years ago when I became responsible for some distance education undergraduate programmes. In those days, remotely located students had textbooks, a collection of selected readings and most importantly, a study guide prepared by skilled instructional designers in collaboration with the faculty member. Together, these people made the text and readings come alive by highlighting key points and prompting for student response. These days, such guided learning can be done more efficiently using the Internet or, preferably, a platform such as the Integrated Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE) at NUS. A highlight of the distance education programme was the once-a-semester weekend school where 'hungry' students descended on campus from all corners of the country to discuss some of the content and activities they found challenging and to participate in some important group learning activities. The learning outcomes from such programmes were comparable to those for on-campus students and sometimes better!

Let us for a moment accept the proposition that lecturing is an inefficient content delivery system and ask why newer technologies are not being used in its place. Firstly, students tend to react negatively to such changes and this may be reflected in their evaluations of lecturers. Many students rate highly faculty members who spoon-feed content and give little challenge in terms of workload and assessment. Poor student evaluations are threats to one's tenure and promotion. Secondly, one's academic peers may be uncomplimentary if he/she is not 'seen' to be lecturing. I have even heard (at NUS) that faculty members who choose not to use PowerPoint have been encouraged to do so! Finally, our learning environments are not conducive to small group collaborative learning.

In this article I have only suggested the value of replacing lecturing by a more efficient content delivery system plus small group tutorials and collaborative learning. I do believe that disciplines such as engineering can be better approached through problem-based learning (PBL). I have successfully introduced PBL some time ago in most medical schools, but I am only slowly adopting it in engineering. However, that is a topic for another day.