Physicists and chemists interested in Mary Burgan's (2006a) Change
article "In Defense of Lecturing," and the over 30-post POD
discussion-list commentary at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0702&L=pod#2>, may be
interested in two articles in the March 2007 issue of James Rhem's
"National Teaching and Learning Forum" <http://www.ntlf.com>:
(a) "Burgan Battles: Lecture - Strawman or Villain? Does the lecture
deserve disdain, defense, or understanding?" [Rhem (2007)], and
(b) "ESSAY: The Canon Wars Revisited" [Burgan (2007)].
REFERENCES
Burgan, M. 2006a. "In Defense of Lecturing," Change Magazine,
November/December; online at
<http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/change/sub.asp?key=98&subkey=2105>.
Mary Burgan is former General Secretary of the American Association
of University Professors, a professor of English emerita at Indiana
University -Bloomington, and author of "Illness, Gender, and Writing:
The Case of Katherine Mansfield," published by Johns Hopkins. For a
somewhat different take on lectures in science courses see Mazur
(1996).
Burgan, M. 2006b. "What Ever Happened to the Faculty?" Johns
Hopkins University Press (JHUP). JHUP information at
<http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/3461.html>. Amazon.com
information at <http://tinyurl.com/39f7lt>. A review by J.R. Thelin
(2004) reads: "Mary Burgan's fresh look at campus governance provides
a ray of hope for the future of the faculty's role in higher
education. She draws effectively from her own university experience
plus her leadership in the AAUP to show how both old and new customs
in academic life can be substantive in the 21st century. This book
will help higher education become a brave, new world in the best
sense."
Burgan, M. 2007. "ESSAY: The Canon Wars Revisited," NTLF 16 (3),
March, online to subscribers at
<http://www.ntlf.com/FTPSite/issues/v16n3/essay.htm> (Excerpted from
a chapter entitled "Getting the 'Liberal' Out of Education," [pp.
49-76] in Burgan (2006b). If your institution doesn't have a
subscription to NTLF, then, in my opinion, it should.
Mazur, E. 1996. "Are Science Lectures a Relic of the Past: Most
students have an attention span of about 15 minutes. So why, asks
Eric Mazur, do universities persist with hour-long lectures during
which notes taking notes from the blackboard is the main form of
activity?" Physics World 9: 13-14; online at
<http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/publications.php?function=search&topic=8>
(scroll to the bottom).
Rhem, J. 2007. "Burgan Battles: Lecture - Strawman or Villain? Does
the lecture deserve disdain, defense, or understanding?" NTLF 16 (3),
March, freely online for a few weeks at <http://www.ntlf.com/>.