Re: Teaching 3 Students

["Steven T. Ratliff" <STR@NWC.EDU>]

I think Rick raises a good point.  In the past I have assigned students a
speech on some topic of physics, and the quality varies greatly.  Students
who do a poor job don't learn much, nor do they do a good job of teaching
others.  It can work well, but there is no guarantee.  For bright,
well-motivated students it should work well.




Steven T. Ratliff
Professor of Physics
Northwestern College
3003 Snelling Ave. N.
St. Paul,  MN     55113-1598
U. S. A.

Internet:  stratliff@nwc.edu





Rick Tarara <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>
Sent by: "phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators" <PHYS-L
08/28/01 02:28 PM
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I actually have a problem with this approach.  While the lessons that a
given student prepares will give her greater insight into that material,
unless her presentations and the presentations of the others in the class
are of a high quality (at least as high as would be given by the
instructor)
then the parts of the course NOT done by an individual may not be learned
nearly as well.  I see this with just about all student presentations. The
process works well for the presenters but not so well for the rest of the
class.  In the model below, there are severe problems with getting any
kind
of consistent flow because there are essentially three instructors with
three different styles which probably won't connect well to each other and
will probably each be deficient in some major aspects.

You can certainly be more conversational and more interactive with a small
group and might want to look at other alternative programs, but I
certainly
wouldn't divide up the 'traditional' presentations and assign them to the
students.

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
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Saint Mary's College
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rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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----- Original Message -----


> Herbert H Gottlieb wrote:
>
> > Instead of presenting the demos, lectures, reviews etc etc yourself,
> > have each of the students, in turn, doing the presentations every day
> > for the rest of the class.  Everyone who has taught physics knows that
> > you learn much more from teaching others than you do by sitting in
> > a conventional classroom and taking notes. ...