Lectures and Examinations: Different kinds of lectures

Different kinds of lectures

• Formal lecture
  A formal lecture is the most common teaching method. A professor teaches in front of a large group of students. These formal lectures mostly aim at transferring information. Students are expected to take personal notes in addition to the course text, slides or transparencies.
  Most of the time, the interaction between professor and students in such a formal lecture is rather limited, even though there are professors who openly invite students to comment and react. The average Belgian student restricts his own contribution mainly to asking questions with a certain relevance to other students.
  Normally an examination is not organised or taken before the end of a semester (in January or June).
• Practical – Seminar – Tutorial
  Practicals, seminars or tutorials do not necessarily focus on the transfer of knowledge, but students are expected to be actively involved. Whether it is about exercises (tutorial), feedback on an assignment (seminar) or practising skills (practical), personal input will always be expected and often marked as well (permanent evaluation). 
• Group work
  For a number of programme courses, you are expected to carry out a large assignment together with other students. The difficulty here is often situated in finding a good balance between taking the initiative and being open to initiatives taken by others. Only putting forward your own initiative often provokes sharp reactions. But passively waiting for other people’s initiatives provokes resentment as well.
• Reports – Papers - Thesis
  Both in reports, papers and theses, all initiatives need to be taken by you. The very aim of these assignments is that you prove your skills at dealing with a subject independently. That is why there is often little monitoring offered in this kind of assignment. Normally you only have feedback with your promoter (professor, assistant) at the beginning and each time a major part is finished. For reports and papers you often find guidelines posted on Toledo by the tutor.