Re: Feynman (was pedagogy)

[Rick Tarara <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

It's just not the same.  I have heard from a number of students--many adult
students with lots of experience in the classroom, that after trying some
form of distance learning, they were very dissatisfied.  They want someone
LIVE, in front of them, to listen to and interact with.

This is not to say that there is much (if any value) to reading the book, or
even you carefully prepared PowerPoint presentation to the students.
However, if you are using a decent book (and can get the students to read
it--see numerous other threads on that), if you do have your notes available
(mine now include imbedded animations), if you have other resources
available, it may all not be sufficient.  Talking to (AND WITH) the students
in a group (i.e. a class), explaining some of the finer points in detail--in
several ways--, getting the students to interact with you so that you can
discover their problem points and then attack them, getting the students to
reinforce their own understanding (when it is correct), doing live
demonstrations (with serious explanations), letting students ask questions
that take you off on a tangent that ends up really demonstrating how physics
APPLIES to their everyday lives----these and many more points that others
can add surely make the time spent in the classroom with students much more
than 'a waste of professional time, and an insult to the student.'

Rick

*********************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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----- Original Message -----
From: "fred bucheit" <fbucheit@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 11:10 AM
Subject: Re: Feynman (was pedagogy)


>     Why don't we just give the student a fairly detailed description of
what
> we want him to learn and let him learn it by whatever means works best for
> him? There are so many resources available today that there is no excuse
for
> not being able to do that. To have a teacher or professor stand in front
of
> a room and tell students things they can learn on their own is a terrible
> waste of professional time, and an insult to the student. It also puts the
> student in the passsive learning mode rather than the active mode of
digging
> it out on his own. The professor could be available a given number of
hours
> to direct the student progress, both what is learned and how or where to
> find it.
>   With today's technology, we could make up a hundred different tests to
> assess the student and tell him that he can take the test when he is
ready.
> He could also be given more than one chance to pass the test.
>
> Fred Bucheit    retired Physics teacher
>
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