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[Phys-l] Teaching Naked



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ABSTRACT: Jeffrey Young, in a recent Chronicle report "When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom," describes the computerless "Teaching Naked" approach to classroom instruction favored by José Bowen. Bowen especially dislikes PowerPoint (PP) presentations. My own experience is that PP "lectures" *can* be structured so as to promote active student engagement and need not suffer from the faults of average PP presentations: lack of logical outline form; improper use of charts, graphs, and tables; and reliance on PP's commercial "Auto-Layouts" and "chartjunk." As for "teaching naked," José Bowen appears to be dismissive of the advantages of clickers for encouraging interactive engagement and thus increasing student learning. I conclude that "When Computers Enter Classrooms, Student Learning May Increase."
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Jeff Saul, in his PhysLrnR post titled "Re: All about constructivism," wrote [my insert at ". . . .[insert]. . . .]:

"I just found the article. . . .[Young (2009) at <http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/>]. . . .in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. I thought this group might be interested because. . .[the article describes the teaching approach of José A. Bowen who]. . . espouses learning through interactive engagement (particularly using lectures for discussion) and devalues the use of technology (particularly Powerpoint) except for making lecture materials available to the students before class."

Young (2009) wrote [bracketed by lines "YYYYYY"]:

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College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked" - by which he means, sans machines.

More than anything else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web.
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Regarding PowerPoint (PP), some discussion list subscribers may be aware of Edward Tufte's war on PowerPoint presentations, see e.g. "Lousy PowerPoint presentations: The fault of PP users?" [Tufte (2006)].

With due respect to Tufte (I own three of his marvelous books on the visual presentation of information), and to José Bowen, I think it's less that "Power Point Cannot Engender Discussion," or that "PowerPoint Makes Us Dumb," or that "PowerPoint Is Evil," than that most of those who use "PowerPoint" are not using it properly.

My own experience is that PP presentations *can* be structured so as to promote active student engagement and discussion. Furthermore, PP presentations need not suffer from the faults of many PP presentations: lack of logical outline form; improper use of charts, graphs, and tables; and reliance on PowerPoint's commercial "Auto-Layouts" and "chartjunk."

As for the advantages of "teaching naked," judging from Young's (2009) account, Bowen appears to be dismissive of the advantages of clickers for encouraging interactive engagement and thus student learning - see e.g. Bruff (2009) and Hake (2008). But that Bowen is as least *aware* of clickers is apparent in his earlier article [Bowen (2006)].

Yes, I'm aware that for "Peer Instruction" (PI) [Mazur (1997), Crouch & Mazur (2001)] low-tech flashcards appear to be just as effective as clickers in promoting student learning [Lasry (2008)]. But as indicated in Hake (2008):

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Clickers:
(a) have contributed to the spread of the PI approach by providing a relatively easy and attractive bridge from traditional passive-student lectures to greater interactivity;

(b) allow instructors to obtain real-time student feedback in histogram form thus "making students' thinking visible and promoting critical listening, evaluation, and argumentation in the class";

(c) archive student responses so as to improve questions and contribute to education research.

From a broader perspective, clickers may contribute to the spread of
"interactive engagement" methods shown to be relative effective in introductory physics instruction - i.e., methods designed to promote conceptual understanding through the active engagement of students in heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities that yield *immediate feedback* through discussion with peers and/or instructors [Hake (1998a,b)].
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I conclude that "When Computers Enter Classrooms, Student Learning May Increase."

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands.
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>
<http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/>


"A clash of doctrines is not a disaster - it is an opportunity."
Alfred North Whitehead


REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.
Bowen, J.A. 2006. "Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from your Classroom Will Improve Student Learning" (Extended article), National Teaching and Learning Forum, 16(1); online to subscribers at <http://www.ntlf.com/FTPSite/issues/v16n1/index.htm>. If your institution doesn't subscribe, then it should! This article was also disseminated by the "Tomorrow's Professor" list as Msg. 786 on 3 April 2007, online at <http://tinyurl.com/2xmm5p>.

Bruff, D. 2009. "Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments." Jossey-Bass. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/5otp9r>. Note the searchable "Look Inside" feature. See also the description in Bruff's Blog at <http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/?page_id=36>.

Crouch, C.H. & E. Mazur. 2001. "Peer Instruction: Ten years of experience and results," Am. J.Phys. 69: 970-977; online at <http://tinyurl.com/sbys4>.

Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six thousand- student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66(1): 64-74; online at <http://tinyurl.com/3xuyqe> (84 kB).

Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory mechanics courses," online at <http://tinyurl.com/2tg5d9> (108 kB) - a crucial companion paper to Hake (1998a).

Hake, R.R. 2008. "The Case for Classroom Clickers - A Response to Bugeja," online at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/CaseForClickersJ.pdf> (716 kB) and ref. 56
at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>. The abstract is also online at <http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/Bugeja> with a provision for comments.

Lasry, N. 2008. "Clickers or Flashcards: Is There Really a Difference?" Phys. Teacher 46: 242-244; online at <http://tinyurl.com/sbys4>.

Mazur, E. 1997. "Peer instruction: a user's manual." Prentice Hall; information online at <http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/education/pi_manual.php>.

Saul, J. 2009. "Re: All about constructivism," PhysLrnR post of 23 Jul 2009 07:14:03-0600; online at <http://tinyurl.com/nre86n>. To access the archives of PhysLnR one needs to subscribe, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html> and then clicking on "Join or leave the list (or change settings)." If you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!

Tufte, E. 2006. "Lousy PowerPoint presentations: The fault of PP users?" online at <http://tinyurl.com/flbhr/>.

Young, J.R. 2009. "When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom." Chronicle of Higher Education: Technology, 24 July; online at <http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/>. Young's article is accompanied by a 4 minute video of José Bowen nakedly lecturing on "Teaching Naked."