[Physltest] [Phys-L] Listening Skills (was test)

[Rick Tarara <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

We were all out hunting turkeys but are now all hiding from the other
hunter(s).

Actually, let me throw out something.

Are others seeing evidence that listening skills are going South right along
with reading, math, and critical thinking skills?  If so, maybe this is why
lecture format seems less effective today than it perhaps was in the
(distant) past.

My anecdotal evidence:  I give quizzes every Friday in my Gen-Ed Physics
class.  But before I hand out the quiz, I take questions for 10 minutes.  If
someone asks a question that is on the quiz--it gets answered.  Sometimes I
will even expand an answer so as to cover something that is on the quiz.
Then we immediately take the quiz.  Increasingly though, more and more
students are missing the questions that we just went over--and often the
answers were short, to the point, and really emphasized during the question
sessions.

Now I know that the skill or art of listening has certainly decayed from the
days when all history, basically all information was verbal--pre Guttenberg.
I suspect that TV supplanting radio has eroded the skills some more, but I'm
really concerned that the constant bombardment with sound--if a student
doesn't have a cell phone stuck in her ear it is earphones listening to
'music'-- has conditioned them to tune out too much of the aural information
coming at them?  I really think this is true of any info presented to them
in TV format--educational films and tapes.  TV is for 'entertainment' and
NOT a medium that can (and should) greatly enhance the learning process.

Just one of my many pet peeves.....

Rick (who also experienced very low attendance today due to the fact that
almost all the liberal arts profs have cancelled Tuesday classes --against
policy, but what do they care-- so that MANY students took off Friday for
yet another week of break!)

*********************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
********************************************************
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********************************************************

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shapiro, Mark" <mshapiro@EXCHANGE.FULLERTON.EDU>

Subject: Re: test


> No news is good news!
>
> Behalf Of SSHS KPHOX
> Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 10:53 AM
>
> Have I been dropped? No news at all.
>
> Ken Fox
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