(because I'm lazy, I'm going to refer to it as SU)
I can't actually provide much of a critique on the history or
philosophy of the idea, although I'm no longer ignorant of it. I had
never heard of it when I approached the University about teaching,
but that's not surprising, except maybe for the fact that I also
lurked here for many years. It's probably been mentioned or even
discussed on phys-L but not very much in my (faulty?) memory. The
idea, in a nutshell: replace the traditional lecture approach with an
interactive approach that involves peers as well as instructors.
Rather than studying the concept, I spent virtually all my time smack
in the middle of it. It sounds strange to use this word, but I want
to say that my experience with SU is not "academic," if you know what
I mean.
Our classroom is very similar to those described in the links above.
5 round tables, each seating 9 students in comfy chairs. Two
projector screens. Each table has a central podium; the podium
contains electrical outlets, network connections, and a video
connection to the screens. There is also an overhead videocam at an
auxiliary lab table. One chalkboard, legacy from the original
classroom that was converted to SU. A lecture podium houses a
computer and monitor, and controls for the screens.
The first couple of classes take up administrative duties. An entry
survey asks students for their backgrounds and expectations, informal
in the sense that we did it for our own purposes rather than the
University's. I found these to be invaluable, not only at the
beginning, but to refer back to throughout the semester. Also FCI,
and some University-required surveys. Also a presentation of the
syllabus, homework and grading policies, remaining registration
issues, etc.
At this University, everyone taking physics at this level has to sign
up for 3 separate sections: lecture, lab, recitation. Invariably,
these are taught by a professor/lecturer, a graduate TA, and a
different graduate TA, respectively. Long-time complaints about this
system appear to include a) the students are exposed to significantly
different teaching skills/styles and b) there is not always good
synchronization between what is being covered in class/lab/recitation.
A supposed key point about the structure of the SU classroom is that
it perfectly combines lecture/lab/recitation into one classroom with
exactly the same teachers all the time, and perfectly synchronizes
all lecture/lab/recitation topics. And then eliminates the lecture
part.
I will return to this last paragraph, especially the last sentence,
more than once.
After the first couple of classes, during which we do spend some easy
time on random physics-like activities as well, each table of 9 is
organized into groups of 3 students. The surveys are used primarily
for this, since we otherwise know little about the students. The most
important initial goal is to avoid extreme pairings, such as 3
students with really strong backgrounds, or 3 students with really
poor backgrounds. Ideally, we would end up with 15 groups of 3, each
with a strong, a weak, and an in-between student. Ideals are
virtually impossible to achieve, but at least on paper there is
enough of a distribution that the groupings are not to hard to come
up with. Each student has his or her own name tag on the podium at
the table, so not only do the students learn their peer's names
quickly, but the teachers can too.
By design, the arrangement achieves one thing immediately: there is
an instant social interaction between students. Some of the students
know each other anyway, and after all they're kids... they make
friends, if for no other reason than they have a camaraderie born of
sharing a common enemy: physics. Regardless, the round-table setting
encourages and achieves a high level of interactivity. Along with a
couple other aspects along the way, all the students know one another
well before the end of the semester, and I'm sure new friendships are
born. I can't really say how this compares to a traditional lecture
section, since I've not (yet) taught a traditional lecture section,
but it would be easy to believe arguments that SU is "better" in this
regard.
The most practical of these arguments would be that students learn
"better" by interacting with their peers, whereas in a pure lecture
setting the student is isolated, mano-a-mano with/against the
lecturer, so to speak. But there is a flip side. What about the case
in the heavily peer-oriented setting where a good student feels he or
she is "stuck" with a less-than-ideal peer personality. Suddenly the
tables are turned, and a pure lecture setting, where the good student
can at least withdraw into his or her own little world and fend for
themselves, becomes a preferred opportunity. I plan to come back to
this discussion point, because in fact there are even more flip
sides, and flip-flip sides, if you know what I mean.
Going forward, I'm inclined to talk about individual aspects of my
experience, rather than try to go further explaining the concept or
lofty principles in a connected, unified way. First of all, I have no
PER background, can't speak to the research, and am basically
thoroughly unqualified to talk about it, other than the fact that I
did it, or a version of it. Besides, there are people on this list
who *can* speak to this, and I hope they will respond - some of my
observations may be better as responses than assertions. Second, I
really want to focus on certain aspects that I feel are important,
and that I could use some help trying to sort out. I would like to
rely on other posters to help determine what else might be discussed.
My long weekend may start early so no prediction of the next post -
no timeline on this anyway :-)