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Re: [Phys-l] Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence #2



Look... in order to learn/understand/whatever-you-want -to-call-it the material expected from a physics course (or perhaps any course) that is worth the credit-hours it claims, the adage that "3 hours of on-task work per week for each credit hour of the course" is probably pretty close to correct for the average student. The problem is not lecture per se... the problem is getting students to spend anywhere near the required on-task time.

I see the problem as students refusing to spend significant out-of-class time on-task. If this is the case, then 50-minute lectures three or four times a week just about becomes the only time the student spends on that course, and I would agree that lecture is not going to work.

In both entrance and exit surveys, our students self-report that they intend to (and then do) spend about 5 hours of out-of-class work per week... total... for all classes. That is, about one hour a on weekdays only. Our off-campus consultants tell us this is typical nationwide. If students are spending fifteen 50-minute periods per week attending all class, and then an additional 5 hours beyond that, they are spending less than 20 hours per week on all coursework. When we tell them we expect 40 to 50 hours of coursework per week they literally laugh at us.

In a 50-minute period, if I can get students to ask questions, discuss some difficult issues and discuss typical stumbling blocks, and explain the next assignment... and then they would go out and spend 2 hours on task before the next class, either alone or in study groups, I think I would be a highly successful teacher. But I haven't discovered how to get students to do this, and they claim they have no intention of doing it. Heck... I can't even get them to buy the textbook let alone read it.

I place most of the blame on our whole culture of athletics and other extra-curricular activities, plus the number of hours spent on a job to pay for college, plus the desire for a social life (after all, college is supposed to be the best time of your life). But I also place some of the blame on the anti-lecture folks who essentially attempt to bring the studying, book reading, group work, problem solving time into the 50-minute period. This can be interpreted as giving up on expecting the students to do anything outside of class.

I'm willing to be a "coach" during my 50-minutes in class rather than a lecturer, but even the athletic coaches expect running, and weight training, and other skills development outside of the actual "practice time." And students cheerfully give their sport this amount of time and effort. What could we accomplish if students viewed physics with the same enthusiasm as they view their sport?


Michael D. Edmiston, PhD.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Chair, Division of Natural and Applied Sciences
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
Office 419-358-3270
Cell 419-230-9657