[Phys-l] note-taking etc. (was: laptops ...)

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

Spagna Jr., George wrote:
> Somewhere in this conversation we might want to address the need to
> teach and reinforce what it means to "take good notes."  

An exxxxcellent point.

Let me add that the answer varies from student to student:
 a) Some students do better taking no notes at all, so they can
  fully pay attention in class.  This is especially true if
  the lectures closely follow the text.
 b) Some students find that the process of writing notes is
  a vital part of their learning process (whether or not they
  ever look at the notes again).
 c) Some students can take 'em or leave 'em.
 d) Some students start with the "official" handouts write
  tons of stuff in the margins.

Personally I have never understood method (b), but I am not
so arrogant as to think that just because I don't understand
it, it doesn't exist.  Actually it seems to be the most-common
case, if only by a modest margin.

Note that having "official" notes available does not prevent
students in category (b) from taking their own.

===============

In college I took some classes where the lectures diverged rather
spectacularly from the text.  The students who didn't like to take
notes rigged up the following system:
 -- Find three students who are taking the class and who have good
  handwriting and good note-taking skills.
 -- They take notes "tag team" style:  One takes down what's on the
  first chalkboard, the next takes down what comes next, et cetera.
  A lecturer can easily talk faster than any human can take notes,
  but not 3x faster, so it's possible to take reeeally good notes
  if you're only responsible for 1/3rd of the material.
 -- After class, the three meet and collate their notes.
 -- The professor proofreads the result.
 -- The result is duplicated and distributed.
 -- The three note-takers get paid, which makes them happy.
 -- The professor gets a copy, which makes him happy.
 -- All the students get exceptionally good notes.

Herb Gottlieb wrote:

> > ... why not go one stepfurther. Give students the entire year's lecture notes in advance 

Sarcasm aside, there's nothing wrong with that.

If that were really a big problem, students would be forbidden from buying
the textbook.

If having students read ahead in the textbook is a big problem for you,
please explain what you did to cause this problem.  A lot of folks
would like to trade problems with you.

> > so
> > they do not need to come to any of your classes for the rest of the year??

Well, in college there are plenty of students who don't go to
class, especially in classes where the lectures closely follow
the text.

In HS they still have to go to each class.  There are state laws
involved, and funding formulas that depend on the number of
students _in each class_.  Skiving off the lecture is mildly
insulting to the lecturer, but is forgivable.  Messing up the
funding is not forgivable.  So they must come to class each day,
if only to be counted.  If some of the students don't need to
hear the lecture, they can go to the back and do something else
  *) Ideally they should do something that can be done in this
   classroom and not elsewhere, such as:
   -- Play with a ripple tank.  Can you make a mirror that focusses
    plane waves to a point?  Can you make a lens?  Can you make a
    Fresnel?
   -- Can you build a Wheatstone bridge?  How accurately can you
    null it?  That is the temperature coefficient of an Allen-Bradley
    resistor?  What is the tempco of the wire in this electromagnet?
   -- Can you build a degenerate parametric amplifier out of Legos?
   -- Have you done all your physics homework?  Have you done *all*
    the end-of-chapter problems?  Have you done *all* the problems
    on last year's math contest?
   -- You get the idea.  There's lots of stuff to do.
  *) There's also non-physics-related stuff.  For students who really are
   caught up on the required physics, if they can't find any fun physics
   to do, it's no skin off my nose if they do their history homework,
   read a novel, or whatever ... anything, really, so long as it doesn't
   disrupt the rest of the class.

Bernard Cleyet wrote:

> > > This reminds me of an article in the AJP by a Prof. who passed out the final at the beginning
> > > of the semester.  That's all I remember except he was (is) rather famous, and his argument
> > > was cogent.    I think this was pre W.W.II.

I experienced a variant of that in HS.  We had to *take* the test on the
first day of class.  The grade didn't count, but the results let the
teacher know what he had to cover.  He told us the same test would be
used as the final ... so we knew exactly what we were expected to learn.

Some students scored 98 or 99 out of 100 on the first day.  So they sat
in the back for a year and read library books etc. as discussed above.