In his Chemed-L post of 9 Feb 2002 16:28:27-0600 titled "Re: Planning
for a PhD in Engineering Education", Don Davis (2002) wrote:
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We are treated to the prophetic wisdom from MIT. . . .[Woodie Flowers
(2000), prediction that "Chalk and talk is dead - we're just having
an extended wake . . . (Chalk and talk). . . will be closed out by
the internet within a few years."] Woodie Flowers may have thought he
was making a bold prediction ... but alas, he was merely echoing
similar thoughts voiced by . . . (Homer J. Simpson who said): ". . .
Kids are great . . . and what with the Internet and all, they
practically raise themselves!"
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Contrary to Davis, Woodie Flowers's prediction is the antithesis of
Homer Simpson's ". . . Kids are great . . . and what with the
Internet and all, they practically raise themselves!"
Instead Woodie's forecast, evidently misunderstood by Davis, is that
traditional chalk & talk TRAsmission to Passive Target (TRAPT)
instruction will be replaced by the internet within a few years,
because TRAPT instruction is ineffective and more cheaply delivered
by the internet. The former point is consistent with (a) Woodie's
slides #42-45, and (b) results from physics education research as
reviewed by McDermott & Redish (1999) and Hake (2002b).
But Davis (2001a) prefers to rely "on the evidence of his own eyes."
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So what's the best method? RESEARCH ON EDUCATIONAL METHODS OF
DUBIOUS QUALITY BE DAMNED! ARGUMENTS BASED ON SUCH "EVIDENCE" ARE
NOTHING MORE THAN A PIG IN A TIARA! (which, last time I checked, is
still a pig!). I'LL TAKE THE EVIDENCE OF MY EYES OVER 1000 JOURNAL
ARTICLES ANY DAY. The best method is whatever one gets the student
to spend the time with the material and strive, and strive, and
strive for understanding. This has really everything to do with the
student, and little to do with the exact method of instruction . . . "
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Woodie does NOT foresee that MIT kids will "with the Internet and
all. . . practically raise themselves." Instead he thinks they will
be better educated by being ACTIVELY engaged IN THE CLASSROOM AND LAB
with course material, their peers, and their professors, just as are
Davis's students, as judged from Davis (2001b):
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. . . I am tired of frauds and charlatans (some of whom I know to be
poor teachers) strutting around claiming to have reinvented Western
thought. I give dynamic, interesting, with lots of student
interaction, tons of give-and-take, cool demonstrations, and homework
and labs carefully chosen to make it all fit together. . . ."
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If Davis would find the time to actually read some of the stuff the
"frauds and charlatans" are writing about education, he would find
that many of them are actually working his side of the street and
would applaud his "dynamic, interesting. . .(lectures). . . with
LOTS OF STUDENT INTERACTION, TONS OF GIVE-AND-TAKE, cool
demonstrations, and homework and labs carefully chosen to make it all
fit together."
Consistent with Woodie's forecast, MIT has moved towards closing out
chalk and talk by embarking on, as reported by Carey Goldberg (2001),
"a 10-year initiative, apparently the biggest of its kind, that
intends to create . . .(free). . . public Web sites . . .(with no
college credit attached to their use). . . for its almost 2,000
courses, and post materials like lecture notes, problem sets,
syllabuses, exams, simulations, even video lectures." If you don't
believe it, take a look at MIT's "Open Course Ware" site
<http://web.mit.edu/ocw/>.
Are MIT professors worried about being replaced by the internet? Not
if they agree with MIT president Charles Vest. According to Goldberg
(2001) Vest thinks:
"Our central value is people and the human experience of faculty
working with students in classrooms and laboratories, and students
learning from each other, and the kind of intensive environment we
create in a residential university. I don't think we are giving away
the direct value, by any means, of that we give to students."
MIT's John Belcher (2000) has discussed an exemplary
interactive-engagement course of the type that will not soon be
replaced by the internet.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
Flowers, W. 2000. "Why change, Been doin' it this way for 4000
years!" ASME Mechanical Engineering Education Conference: "Drivers
and Strategies of Major Program Change," Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
March 26-29, 2000; on the web at
<http://hitchcock.dlt.asu.edu/media2/cresmet/flowers/>. (One needs to
download the free "RealPlayer.")
Hake, R.R. 2002b. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort."
Conservation Ecology 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss2/art28>. "Conservation Ecology," is
a FREE "peer-reviewed journal of integrative science and fundamental
policy research" with about 11,000 subscribers in about 108
countries. Volume 5, issue 2
<http://www.consecol.org/Journal/vol5/iss2/
McDermott, L. C., and E. F. Redish. 1999. RL-PER1: resource letter on
physics education research. American Journal of Physics
67(9):755-767. Available online at
<http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/ripe/perg/cpt.html>.