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Re: Pedagogy



One way to promote 'learning from textbook"
is to assign weekly Internet quizzes. Make
sure your quiz has many questions that can
be answered by nearly everybody who
reads the text. The other half can be a
little more challenging. I found that a policy
"quizzes contribute 15% toward the final"
motivated students. Implementing this
approach was easy for me because our
school has Blackboard and because a small
fraction of students who can not access the
Internet from homes can do this from many
places on campus. You can assign quizzes
based on chapters to be presented in class
but I did not try this. My experience with this
approach is described in the May, 2004 issue
of The Physics Teacher (page 320).
Ludwik Kowalski





On Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at 11:58 America/New_York, Michael Edmiston
wrote:

Regurgitation of the text on the blackboard does indeed strike me as
poor teaching. I do not "lecture" from the textbook. However, I often
get the student complaint: "Why should I buy the textbook when he never
lectures from it? The only thing the textbook is good for is finding
the assigned problems."

Therefore, realize that some students expect regurgitation of the text,
and get angry when the prof doesn't do that.

I tell students my lecture is different than the text so they are
getting the material twice. Once from me, in my words, with emphasis
on
what I think is important, and with some warning about pitfalls, etc...
and once from an established author who is giving a different
perspective, as well as worked-out examples, study guides, chapter
reviews, etc.

I advise students to read the text before class. Come to class. Then
read the book again. I sure wish they would do that.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu