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Re: [Phys-l] Time Outside of Class [was Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing]



I find that students are willing to spend time doing coursework/studying
outside of class/recitation/lab but that the amount of time depends on
how the course is structured/presented and what is expected of the
students. Around the turn of the century I made it a goal of mine to
structure the introductory calculus-based physics course that I teach so
that students would spend, on the average, 6-9 hours per week outside of
class/recitation/lab working on the course. For a set 9 consecutive
semesters, I included a question on the course evaluation sheet that
students fill out anonymously at the end of the semester, asking for an
estimate on how much time they spent per week on the course, outside of
class/recitation/lab. Prior to and during the corresponding period of
time I made changes to the course designed to increase the amount of
time students spent working on the course outside of
class/recitation/lab. Rounded to the nearest hour, with each horizontal
line of xs representing a semester and each x representing an hour per
week, here in sequential order, starting with a Fall (semester I of the
2-semester course) semester, is what the students, averaged over the
students in the class for the corresponding semester, estimated:

xxxx
xxxxx
xxxx
xxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx

Jeff Schnick
Saint Anselm College


-----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