Are Colleges Ready for the Death of the “Sage on the Stage”?
Professional development needed to prepare faculty for the classroom of tomorrow.
Robin Capehart
Aug 3
From Knowing to Using
For centuries, college professors held the knowledge and students went to campus to get it.
This model worked because information was rare. Books were expensive and academic journals lived inside locked library stacks. If you wanted to learn history or chemistry, you had to sit in a room with an expert. The professor stood at the front of the room as “the Sage on the Stage” and delivered information. The phrase comes from ancient Greek and Roman theater where one authoritative actor spoke truth to a quiet audience.
That world is gone.
Today, information is everywhere. A teenager with a phone can access all human knowledge in seconds. AI tools, digital archives and free online videos broke the university’s monopoly on facts, information and skill development. Students do not need a professor to tell them basic information. They can look it up before the professor finishes taking attendance.
Information is everywhere. As such, the college classroom must change. The job of a college is no longer just handing out information. Their job must be teaching students how to use information.
Knowing information is easy. Using information is hard. Students must learn to spot false information, solve hard problems and speak and write clearly. They need to see how the information in their classroom connects to their real lives and jobs.
Are Faculty Ready?
There are a lot of great professors who are great teachers. I had a good number of them. Nevertheless, for the most part, colleges are not ready for this change.
The problem starts with how professors get trained. A Ph.D. is a research degree. Graduate students spend six years becoming hyper-specialized experts in a tiny topic.
What they don’t do throughout their years of challenging research and writing – is learn how to teach.
Graduate students may proctor a test or even teach a class. However, they have no training in how people learn, classroom management, instructional design or cognitive skill development. A new history professor knows everything about the French Revolution, yet, has zero training on how to build critical thinking skills in a nineteen-year-old student.
Professional degree programs are different.
In medical school, doctors teach students how to examine patients. In nursing school, nurses supervise students on real hospital floors. In engineering school, engineers teach students how to build real bridges.
These are professionals teaching future professionals how to do a job. The lessons are tied to real work. Information is a tool to solve problems.
Much of the rest of college is different. Professors study a topic in isolation. Then, they teach students how to talk about that topic in academic terms. Students memorize facts and other information to pass a test. Too often, they leave class without knowing how to use those ideas in real life.
Deep Knowledge Does Not Equal Good Teaching
In contrast, K-12 school teachers must learn how to teach. To get a K-12 teaching license, you must study pedagogy – the science of teaching.
K-12 teachers must also practice teaching under an expert mentor before they get a job. Colleges requires none of this. A new professor gets a syllabus, a room key and no training. Universities assume that knowing a subject means you know how to teach it.
Research proves that assumption wrong. Deep knowledge does not make you a good teacher. In fact, extreme expertise can make teaching harder. Psychologists call this the “curse of knowledge.” Experts forget how hard a topic was when they first started.
Data shows that the “sage on the stage” method fails.
In 2014, researcher Scott Freeman published a major study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. His team looked at 225 studies of college science and math classes. They compared traditional lectures to “active learning.” Active learning means student debate, group work, and hands-on problem solving.
The results were clear:
Students in traditional lecture classes were 1.5 times more likely to fail.
Active learning bumped exam scores up by 6 percent across the board.
The researchers said traditional lecturing was so bad it was almost unethical.
Yet, most college classes are still just long lectures.
The fix is simple. Universities must provide real professional development that trains their faculty to teach. It cannot be optional.
This training should cover three main areas:
1. Focus on skills, not just facts. A history professor should not just test students on dates. The professor should teach students how the lessons of the past can be applied to the future.
2. Stop lecturing. Professors need training on how to run an interactive classroom. Class time should be spent on debates, case studies and team problem solving.
3. Build real tests. AI can write a standard college essay in five seconds. Professors must learn how to design real-world tests. Students should give live speeches, work through real simulations and defend their ideas out loud.
The value of a college degree is under attack. Tuition is high and students, families and employers are questioning the value of a college education.
If college is just listening to a person read slides, it is not worth the money. Information is free.
On the other hand, learning how to think, solve problems, communicate and adapt is worth the money. College professors have the knowledge to teach these skills. Now, universities must give them the training to actually teach them.
Robin Capehart served thirteen years as president of two universities. He is currently the Principal Fellow at The Carnegie Academy and Senior Consultant for Collegiate Consulting.