In "Re: Confessions of a Converted Lecturer #2"
[Hake (2010b)] I wrote [bracketed by lines
"HHHHH. . . . "]:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
In response to my post "Re: Confessions of a
Converted Lecturer" [Hake (2010a)], Lewis Elton
(2010) wrote [bracketed by lines "EEEEE. . . .
."]:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Long before Eric Mazur, I stopped routine
lecturing in 1969, after learning about the
Keller Plan during a visit to MIT.
However, few if any apart from myself, seem to
have appreciated the essential difference between
routine lecturing - purpose information passing
(bad) - and special lectures - purpose creating
interest and excitement (good); CERTAINLY NOT
BRAGG IN HIS MONOGRAPH ON 'THE LECTURE', WHICH
WAS PUBLISHED BY THE ROYAL INSTITUTION . . .
.[[My CAPS, I wonder if Lewis could supply a
reference? - my Google search failed to unearth
one]]. . . . .
My contribution to this debate seems to have
dropped out of the literature - presumably
because it was many years in advance of others'
thinking. I would much appreciate anything that
you may be able to do to remedy this situation.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Then George MacDonald Ross
<http://www.philosophy.leeds.ac.uk/GMR/homepage/gmr.html>
(2010) in his STLHE-L post "Re: Confessions of a
Converted Lecturer #2" [Ross (2010)] wrote
[bracketed by lines "RRRRRR. . . ."; slightly
edited; my insert at ". . . . .[[insert]]. . . .
.]]:
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The piece by Bragg that Lewis Elton refers to
must be "Advice to lecturers: an anthology taken
from the writings of Michael Faraday and Lawrence
Bragg", edited by Sir George Porter and James
Friday: London, Mansell Information Publishing
for the Royal Institution, 1974.
Sir William Henry Bragg (1862-1942) and his son,
Sir William Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971) were
professors of physics at the University of Leeds
when such positions were hereditary (only
joking!), and they shared the Nobel Prize for
physics in 1915.
Lewis Elton is very well known in higher
education circles in the UK, and I think he is
doing himself an injustice when he says his views
on lectures are ignored.
I myself gave up lecturing in favour of
discussion seminars for teaching philosophy in
1993. Ironically, a right-wing, down-market UK
newspaper, the Daily Mail, recently published a
shock-horror article on the increasing number of
UK academics paid over £100,000 p.a. It
illustrated the story with an old agency photo of
me giving a lecture in the old chemistry theatre
at the University of Leeds, dating back to 1993.
So I'm doubly insulted by the implication (a)
that I earned over £100,000 (by the time I
retired, I was earning just over half that), and
(b) that I give lectures.
See "Surge in lecturers on £100,000 plus: Number
rises by 450% as student places are cut" [Clark
(2010)]
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
George MacDonald Ross IS RIGHT. The piece by
Bragg that Lewis Elton refers to is
Faraday & Bragg (1974), as was also indicated to
me in an email of 21 Mar 2010 from Lewis Elton.
REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Clark, L. 2010. "Surge in lecturers on £100,000
plus: Number rises by 450% as student places are
cut" MailOnline, 27 February; online at
<http://tinyurl.com/yhkqr97>.
Elton, L. 2010. "Re: Confessions of a Converted
Lecturer," PBL post of 17 Mar 2010 09:37:02+0000;
online at <http://tinyurl.com/y8qp6ct>.
Faraday, M & L. Bragg. 1974. "Advice to
Lecturers: An Anthology Taken from the Writings
of Michael Faraday and Lawrence Bragg," edited by
James R. Friday and Sir George Porter. Mansell
Information Publishing for the Royal Institution.
Amazon.com information at
<http://tinyurl.com/yk7z4st>. This book is
evidently available at: (a) eBay
<http://tinyurl.com/yf9hsw5> for k$56.33; (b)
AbeBooks <http://tinyurl.com/ya4sdb8> for
$55.82>, (c) local libraries - see
<http://tinyurl.com/ydbbnuz>.