Re: Jackson on Jackson

[palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)]

>        The only way for groups to be effective in instruction is for there
> to be specific, scheduled times for them to meet.  Some kind instructor or
> resource person should be there, especially for undergraduates, but the
> expert faculty member need not be.  Without some kind of supervisor or
> scheduled time, one of two things can go terribly wrong.

What has changed since the fifties? In both undergrad and graduate school
while I was taking courses I always met with some of my classmates to get
*all* of the assigned problems completed. We recognized that the teacher
had assigned them because he wanted us to understand the material. We got
together in advance of the due date sufficiently that one of us (usually
me) could go to the teacher with questions if we were unable to solve a
problem or else find its solution in the library. We had no scheduled
time for this activity; we simply got together in the evenings at our
dormitory (or in our offices while we were grad students) to thrash out
the problems that everyone had not yet solved.

What has changed since the fifties? Why is it now necessary that a
teacher supervise this activity? I know that the same thing we did then
is still done by some of my students. Isn't that good enough? Some will
not receive the benefit of such activity, but I'm sure that was true in
the fifties too. So what? Darwin was right.

What has changed since the fifties?

Leigh