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[Phys-L] lectures vs --



Interactive engagement may be the best way to learn a new topic but if you have some intitial understanding of the subject one often seeks a greater density of information. In a short course or conference presentation I want to glean as much as I can in what little time there is. If I don't unerstand something and there is no time to ask the presenter at least I have the ability to contact him or her at a future date and ask appropriate questions. To me that is a very different situation than attending a class for a semester in order to learn an entirely new subject. Most physics people are trained in solving problems - we must learn how to do new things all the time. Our students don't always (rarely?) have the same skill set. Different tasks, different skills required.

Dan Beeker

On 5/1/12 6:19 PM, phys-l-request@mail.phys-l.org wrote:
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 18:12:08 -0400 (EDT)
From:Aburr@aol.com
To:phys-l@phys-l.org
Subject: [Phys-L] lectures vs --
Message-ID:<10093.2eb488a3.3cd1b9b8@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"


Recently posts concerning lecture vs other procedures have made their
appearance again.
I would appreciate comments on the following two observations.
There were something on the order of 600 presentations during the regular
sessions of the recent AAPT annual meeting. They were almost exclusively
poster or lecture presentations.
1. The number of poster presentations (a very small percentage of the
total number) has been decreasing.
2. Almost all of the remainder were lectures (even those made by persons
interested in physics educational research). If lectures are so bad, why
are they so popular?

Alex. F. Burr

--
Dan Beeker