At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
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Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#2"the professor covered multiple blackboards with mathematical formulas and explained the principles of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism."
Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that.
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#3"the professor covered multiple blackboards with mathematical formulas and explained the principles of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism." Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that.
Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that.
Please tell us more. I've never had the privilege of seeing Walter Lewin in action.
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#4"As each semester progressed, attendance in [the professor's] introductory physics courses fell to 50 percent, as it did, he said, for nearly all of his colleagues...'I had poor attendance, and was failing 10 to 15 percent'"
So, 50 percent of the students aren't coming to class, and they're only failing 10-15 percent? It sounds like the tests are too easy. If the tests were more demanding, more students would come to class--which might (paradoxically) lower the fail rate.
"Unlike in the lectures, attendance counts toward the final grade...[the professor] gauged the level of understanding in the room by throwing out a series of multiple-choice questions. The students “voted” with their wireless “personal response clickers”"
I'm currently a sophomore in Computer Engineering, and I have had several 150+ student lectures that used these clickers to take attendance. It's a simple way to make sure students come to class. This is a major benefit that has nothing to do with smaller class sizes.
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#5As a slight thread hijack, which do you prefer, blackboards or whiteboards?
The physicists and mathematicians I know seem to universally prefer blackboards, while everyone else seems to like whiteboards.
I like whiteboards for any semi-permanent or "data-rich" writing (i.e. multi-color), but probably prefer blackboards for intense computation.
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#6The general sentiment about the TEAL classes (the ones with the clickers) is that they are really gimmicky. Supposedly, it gives the professor some feedback on what concepts are unclear and pushes the students to be attentive.
The problem seems to be that it's just unnecessary structure for something that's typically dynamic. It at least partially devolved into an attendance system - students used to just press in for missing friends, until recently when they had each student buy their own clicker.
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#7"the professor covered multiple blackboards with mathematical formulas and explained the principles of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism." Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that.
Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that. Please tell us more. I've never had the privilege of seeing Walter Lewin in action.
Professor Lewin has several classes available online through both MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) and the iTunes store.
OCW Link: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/Vide...
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#8"As each semester progressed, attendance in [the professor's] introductory physics courses fell to 50 percent, as it did, he said, for nearly all of his colleagues...'I had poor attendance, and was failing 10 to 15 percent'" So, 50 percent of the students aren't coming to class, and they're only failing 10-15 percent? It sounds like the tests are too easy. If the tests were more demanding, more students would come to…
It sounds like the tests are too easy.
You might be right that much or most of the higher pass rate is due to higher attendance, but it's also possible that students were learning plenty from section, the book, and working on problem sets. When I taught the analogous course (Physics 1) at Caltech, many of the students skipped lecture entirely. The failure rate was typically under 5%, and I guarantee it wasn't because the tests were easy.
One student I remember took it all the way: he skipped everything, including homework (which counted for 20% of the grade), but he got perfect scores on all four quizzes and on the final exam. According to the numbers he had an A- because of the 0 on homework, but everyone in the grading room agreed that was absurd, and so we gave him a flat A instead.
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#9"the professor covered multiple blackboards with mathematical formulas and explained the principles of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism." Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that.
As entertaining as his lectures were, it was still pretty easy to leave with barely any more knowledge than you had going in. Especially as the topics got more complex.
I had him for my Waves class, and kids found it to be incredibly hard (and to require lots of on-your-own learning) even while Lewin was jumping around the room and making cool things happen with light and sound.
Re: At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
#10"As each semester progressed, attendance in [the professor's] introductory physics courses fell to 50 percent, as it did, he said, for nearly all of his colleagues...'I had poor attendance, and was failing 10 to 15 percent'" So, 50 percent of the students aren't coming to class, and they're only failing 10-15 percent? It sounds like the tests are too easy. If the tests were more demanding, more students would come to…
It sounds like the tests are too easy. You might be right that much or most of the higher pass rate is due to higher attendance, but it's also possible that students were learning plenty from section, the book, and working on problem sets. When I taught the analogous course (Physics 1) at Caltech, many of the students skipped lecture entirely. The failure rate was typically under 5%, and I guarantee it wasn't because…
1. - 0.2 = 0.8 is typically a B-. Is there a different grading scale there?