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Re: Pedagogy



Fernanda Foertter writes:

Basically, if you can't
learn on your own, you shouldn't be here.


Fernanda: While I sympathize with most of what you said (and even
registered the same complaints when I was taking physics), I would
like you to consider your own responsibility for your education.

In particular, passive learning is not to be confused with getting an
education. In a cliche: 'You never get out of something more than
you put into it."

There are studies which show the relative percent of learning from
various teaching styles and student participation styles. We hear a
lot from PER about the demise of the lecture as an archaic and nearly
worthless approach to student mastery.

The information retention scale goes something like: 5-10% retention
from passive listening (the lecture) all the way to as much as 90%
retention when you know that you will have to present the material
yourself. These figures are recollected from a talk (from the
business side of campus) about getting sales people to master their
product information). Its not totally unrelated. If you are
"learning it on your own", you probably are actually learning it!

Another interesting tidbit I picked up along the way is "Pop quizzes
*burn information* into the mind of the participant." It seems that
forced recognition that you *do not know* the material causes the
student to strongly reinforce those bits of information...by *active*
participation in that bit of information digestion.

Karl


--
Dr. Karl I. Trappe, Physicist
KIT Science