Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-l] Time Outside of Class



Hi Rick,

I worry about it a lot. My overall job is to help students gain the
knowledge and skills they need to lead more productive lives. Helping
them become responsible for their own learning is an important part of
that. In giving so many quizzes and tests, I am taking on a large part
of the responsibility for keeping up with the work on a day-to-day
basis. This relieves them to a large extent of the responsibility for
doing so themselves. The other thing is that being able to pay
attention to and learn from a lecturer is an important skill that one
should improve upon in college.

With these concerns in mind, my arrival at my current methodology is
based on the following considerations:

1. Students seem to learn more physics this way. (Based on FCI gains in
the 30s before my plunge into teaching without lectures, 50s after; and
based on improved performance on recycled finals problems.)

2. I think I help freshman pre-engineering and applied physics majors
and sophomore chemistry and biochemistry majors get in the habit of
allotting time in their schedules to coursework. Also, they experience
firsthand the benefits of keeping up with the work. My thinking is that
by "forcing" them to keep up with the work on a day-to-day basis early
on in their undergraduate careers, they will be more successful in
taking on the responsibility of doing so on their own later on in their
undergraduate careers. One of my goals is to make it so that anyone who
completes the first week of the first semester of the course, completes
the entire two-semester course. I have not been able to meet that goal,
but in striving for it, I think that I have helped a greater number of
students arrive at a level where they take on most of the responsibility
for their own learning later on in their undergraduate career, than I
would using an approach that is closer to being a sink-or-swim approach.

3. Under the present circumstances, I am comfortable with the fact that
I am not doing as much as I could to help students improve their skills
at learning in a lecture environment. At present, I have the sense that
many of the students' professors do lecture so the students are
currently getting plenty of practice at learning from a lecturer. What
I have done, based on the example of people in the PER community, is to
invert much of the process--students get the information from reading
the book outside of class and practice applying that information in
class. In getting the information from reading, students work on
another skill that is, in my opinion, at least as important as the
listening-in-lecture skill, namely, reading.

Jeff Schnick

-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf
Of Rick Tarara
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 7:44 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Time Outside of Class

OK--we now see ALL that you do (have downloaded your quizzes
and will have a look). Here is the next question--one for
all (I think). Does anyone else worry that this much formal
structure may actually hurt students later on in their
studies, or even later on in life, when they have courses or
work that requires significant new learning and they have to
do it on their own? Is all this structure we are seeing in
PER courses, all the inside of class work that used to be
outside of class work, preparing students to be life-long
learners? I honestly don't know, but my instincts give me serious
doubts. Is the 'need' for all this structure a reflection
on student
preparation or on students' lack of taking responsibility for
their own learning, or both, or neither?