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Re: Constructivist teaching, was quantization



LUDWIK KOWALSKI wrote:


My little experience in teaching without lecturing shows that this mode
of operation puts more demands on me. In a lecture mode I could prepare
presentations and follow my plans, more or less. In the student-centered
mode, on the other hand, I am a gambler. The success of an activity depends
on students, not on me. And I have no luxury of being ignorant of their
lack of understanding. It is so depressing to discover the naked truth
about ignorance of some university students. And I must learn to control
myself ...

The lecture mode evolved naturally to protect teachers and keep the level
of learning as high as possible. Students who could not make it were
expected to drop out. But today we are expected to offer a degree to
nearly all students, at least to those who make an effort to learn.

In my case teaching without lecturing was about as effective (in terms of
what students learn) as traditional teaching, maybe slightly more. Good
students liked it, poor students didn't (because they could not hide).

Ludwik has it about right. One really does need to make a conscious
decision that one wants to know the awful truth. The situation, however,
is not hopeless. It IS hopeless if courses are still required to (in
Arons' words): "cover all of physics from galileo to the uncertainty
principle in one semester, to say nothing of astronomy and metoerology
on the side."

This is of course an exaggeration to make a point. But a great many
"standard" courses aim to do a comprehensive survey of nearly all of
classical physics, including mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics
and waves, in one year at 3 hours per week. I will maintain until I die
that such courses will always produce nothing of any lasting value in at
least 50% of the students. And only a vague smattering of disconnected,
little understood equations and words in another 40%.
Jerry Epstein