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Re: [Phys-l] Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing

I know people on the list are going to consider us as dinosaurs, but I have to agree with Mark that it is the learners who have changed. When I was an undergraduate, we lived and breathed physics and math. Nowadays, it almost seems like an afterthought to the students.

It's not only the lack of day to day effort, but also an almost total lack of learning on one's own. I had to work my way through college. I spent the summers working second shift at the local dye and finishing mill. That left me the mornings to myself. I would ride my motorcycle down to one of our numerous Rhode Island beaches, sit down under a tree for shade, and read physics either in preparation for courses to come or just for the pure fun of it. One summer it was Goldstein's Mechanics, another it was Eddington's Mathematical Theory of Relativity. Come September, I would find that some of my fellow physics majors had done the same thing. We would spend hours in the physics lounge going over things we had read but not understood.

I can't imagine students today doing something similar. First of all their lives are totally different. They spend their time in groups and packs. Rarely do they have the time to simply sit down in contemplative thought. Secondly, they no longer have (or use) the wonderful libraries that we had access to - most of the classic texts have been removed from the shelves- only the latest editions and publication dates survive. Most of their reading is done from a computer screen. Even some of their texts are now electronic. Maybe it's because I'm older, but I just can't get into the deep and complex mental excursions that come from sitting alone with a book when I'm reading text from a computer monitor.

Some of my students are really bright, as bright as any of my friends that I remember from undergraduate days. But it's a different kind of bright - it's a quickness to get to an answer - but no thought into the deeper meaning of a problem. Most of my students have no reservations about coming to my office for help. But what I really miss were the days earlier in my teaching when someone would just pop in and want to discuss something they read in Popular Mechanics or Scientific American.

As far as the thread we are discussing, as a student I used to love lectures. It was a time to pick up on all the little nuances that you missed reading the text by yourself. It was a time when you could watch someone else do complicated derivations and follow the process in a more detached way than when you did it yourself. You would get an overview that was impossible when you were sweating out each step along the way.

Bottom line, I find students today to be as intelligent as ever, but I do agree with Mark that they are not as effective as learners.

Bob at PC

-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-
bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Shapiro, Mark
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 4:13 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing

I've used both lecturing and more active teaching methods. The active
methods produced slightly better results, but the major problem these days
is not the teachers, it's the learners. They no longer seem to be willing
to expend any time studying.

I've just retired after 36 years of teaching. This past semester I taught
two sections of an introductory physics sequence with calculus along with
two active learning type labs.

Most of my students were taking 9 or more semester units of science and
math classes. I emphasized that they needed to put in at least 3 hours of
study for every hour in class. However, when I surveyed the classes
during the semester I found that no student was spending more than 10
hours a week TOTAL studying for ALL their classes.

Unless students are willing to expend a reasonable amount of effort on
learning, nothing we do with regard to teaching techniques will help much.

Mark

Dr. Mark H. Shapiro
Professor of Physics, Emeritus
California State University, Fullerton
Phone: 714 278-3884
FAX: 714 278-5810
email: mshapiro@fullerton.edu
web: http://physics.fullerton.edu/~mshapiro
travel and family pictures:
http://community.webshots.com/user/mhshapiro
 CSU-ERFA Website: http://csuerfa.org


-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-
bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Brian Whatcott
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 11:18 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing


I sometimes think that hyperbole is in the eye of the beholder.
For example: "more excess energy production has been demonstrated
by cold fusion enthusiasts in the last half century than from
the combined efforts of all hot fusion researchers in a similar period
and at one ten thousandth the cost."
This certainly sounds hyperbolic to a casual browser of scientific
results. But is it?

Brian Whatcott Altus OK

At 12:12 AM 2/19/2007, Jack, you wrote:
The question, "What is Science?", given the context, is a good one.
Hyperbole, however, does not assist in finding an answer.
Regards,
Jack


On Sun, 18 Feb 2007, Brian Whatcott wrote:

...just what DOES qualify as science: someone
who weaves elaborate theories of the unobservable? - as it might
be strings or the events at the first millisecond of creation?
It is a puzzle.


Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!


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_______________________________________________
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