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The next cut some students come to class, put a recorder on their desk and leave, then pick it up later.
Eventually there's a scene of the professor lecturing to a bunch of empty desks with just recorders.
And the final scene there's the professor's tape player playing to the student's recorders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most interesting, engaging class I have ever had was Philip Greenspun's short database class at MIT. All day for three days, a cycle of ~15 minute lecture, ~15 minute problem sets worked by each student on their own laptop, ~15 minutes of reviewing student solutions (and, if needed, presenting the "correct" solution). I imagine that many classes could be presented in a similar format. I also imagine it would be a lot…
That sounds like an excellent format. What were the hours? I can imagine that taking a lot of planning and refinement over multiple offerings to get the timing just right on the exercises.
Web page for the course here:
I had a laptop and left it home most of the time. And just stuck with taking notes with a pen and sitting upfront. I took lots notes. Some people claim it's pointless and distracts from learning but for me the act of taking notes is what helped solidify the concepts a better. Heck due to my horrible handwriting I couldn't even read some of the notes later. But it was still worth it. Typing them out just wasn't the sa…
This reminds me of the running gag in some college movie where the first day all the students show up. The next cut some students come to class, put a recorder on their desk and leave, then pick it up later. Eventually there's a scene of the professor lecturing to a bunch of empty desks with just recorders. And the final scene there's the professor's tape player playing to the student's recorders.
If students aren’t engaged, they aren’t going to become star pupils once you take away their distractions. Perhaps kids attend more lectures than before knowing that they can always listen in while futzing with other things (and otherwise, they may skip some of the classes entirely). The lecture format is what needs changing. You need a reason to go to class, and there was nothing worse than a professor showing slide…
It's like we never left the Middle Ages, when books were expensive and the point of lecturing was to read the book, which was the only book, or one of a few, to students, who'd then copy it down in their notebooks so they'd have at least a copy of what was in the book. These days, despite the textbook publishers' best efforts, the information is freely available (up until you run into paywalled research papers, but t…
There's a reason why people demand you copy stuff down on your own.
I think this is a highly personal topic. As a student myself i find a laptop in class is very nice, i can type my notes faster, and organize them better. Most of my professors lectures are scatter brained and i frequently have to go back to previous section and annotate or insert new sections. With a computer i just go back and type, with a pen and paper i have to scribble, or write in the margins. Of course computer…
Some of us also have terrible handwriting, so taking notes by hand is out of the question. Though I will also surmise that they can also be a distraction.
The schools are so messed up in the US. Best to just educate children yourself as best you can. As for college kids, best to travel abroad.
15 of the top 20 universities in the world are in the US.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...
Also re: other comments: A video lecture is to a physical lecture what a conference call is to a proper meeting. A professor rambling for 3h is still miles better than watching the same thing on YouTube. The same holds for tv versus watching a film on a movie screen.
Zero distractions and complete immersion. Maybe VR will allow it some day.
However, a laptop is very useful to get work done during breaks or labs when you're actually supposed to use it.