Sage on the Stage

For years, there has been an ongoing effort to change the nature of instruction in higher education that has often been encapsulated in the shift of the instructors role from being a "Sage on the Stage" to being the "Guide on the Side." Put simply, professors should cease being the ultimate arbiter of knowledge in the classroom and instead be a facilitator to student driven examination of the topic.

I have not been a big fan of this and often felt outside the trend. I now have support. Mary Burgan, former general secretary of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and a former English professor at Indiana University has written In Defense of Lecturing in Change Magazine. I feel somewhat vindicated. After all: I am the Sage on the Stage.