MIT Moves Away From Massive Lecture Halls 317
eldavojohn writes "The New York Times is reporting on MIT's migration away from large lectures as many colleges and universities have. Attendance at these lectures often falls to 50 percent by the end of the semester. TEAL (Technology Enhanced Active Learning) gives the students a more hands on approach and may signal the death of the massive lecture hall synonymous with achieving a bachelors of science."
Re:great (Score:5, Informative)
I have to agree. What's the use of having a class so huge that the professor can't even know all his students, doesn't grade papers(his TAs do that), the student can't necessarily see the screen well or hear the professor.
Questions can't realistically be asked, etc...?
I learned more from reading the book, the slides mostly restated the book. And one of the classes the professor forbid tape recorders* and didn't hand out slides. I have poor vision. It sucked.
*Couldn't exactly hide the mic, I'd have needed a boom.
Re:Souds boring (Score:3, Informative)
This is MIT we're talking about. Searching other schools for your cheerleader-eye-candy may be a good move anyway.
Synonymous? (Score:4, Informative)
"...the massive lecture hall synonymous with achieving a bachelors of science."
Synonymous? Maybe at large colleges, but guess what -- you can get a degree without that experience. It's called a smaller school. Sadly, many of my high school compatriots looked at "name brand" first, and size or cost second, if at all. For any high school slashdotters listening, I have a secret -- it's the same degree. My father went to state school in RI, and was recruited by Raytheon before he'd even graduated. He was working alongside graduates from all the Ivy Leagues, getting paid the same. It doesn't matter what the name on the diploma is, what matters is the effort you put in and the skills you provide for your employer. Save your money, avoid crippling student loan debt, and get those smaller class sizes anyways.
Smaller university equals smaller classes. The largest class I've ever had at my university was 40 students -- hardly unmanageable. Consider these things first, since you're going to school for your degree, not bragging rights, at least ostensibly so.
Re:I don't get the "50% reduction in failures" (Score:5, Informative)
MIT can do that to people. Burnout is a real risk there. But MIT's 6-year graduation rate for undergraduates is 94%. [mit.edu] Most students do make it eventually. By comparison, Ohio State is at 68%. [osu.edu] The University of California at Santa Barbara (America's best college for sex [dailynexus.com]) is at 65%.
(I didn't go to MIT. Went to Stanford.)
Re:IMHO (Score:3, Informative)
I think you need numbers to back that assertion up. I haven't seen stats on the large universities, but at my small, private alma mater, tuition covered about 1/3 of the expenses of educating a single student. Now, I'll grant you that they put more money INTO each student almost certainly. BUT, the tuition was also several times higher than at public universities I saw around that time. And I know for a fact that the single largest source of money for the University of Colorado is contracts and grants (so... faculty getting money).
watch costs climb (Score:3, Informative)
Disclaimer: I teach physics at an American university.
When you switch from a big lecture class to small, "workshop" rooms which use computer-based sensors, you raise the cost of the class by factors of many.
Smaller classes are good -- of course. I am much more effective in smaller classes than in a big lecture. But do students want to pay 4-7 times more for the privilege of having small classes?
I'm teaching a "workshop" class in which I can't depend on the computers at all. It doesn't bother me -- I have exercises which use metersticks and stopwatches. But it does cause problems for professors who have become used to using the nice computer-based sensors. Our department/university just can't afford to replace the computers right now.
I'm just trying to point out that changing the way some courses are taught may lead to increased costs. That's all.
Re:Slightly off topic, perhaps... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not a member of the Christian right, by the way. Secular atheist, as is my son. I'm not trumpeting this as a cause, and have no desire to martyr him.
Re:I don't get the "50% reduction in failures" (Score:2, Informative)
Secondly, freshman classes have the highest failure rate at MIT, so the noted improvement is also weighted by that fact. As above, the failure rate wasn't necessarily because the classes are too hard or taught poorly, it was because it's tough to do just enough to get a C-. Sometimes you undershot that goal and got a D or F.
Re:great (Score:3, Informative)
The article makes it sound all rosy, but there is a huge amount of debate right now in how far to take it and where the sweet spot is. The debate is particularly raging for mathematics in the US. The reform mathematics curricula are essentially based on constructivist theories.
Re:I don't get the "50% reduction in failures" (Score:3, Informative)
For all practical intents and purposes, places like MIT and other research universities ARE pure research institutions. Faculty at these institutions do not get hired or receive tenure because they are good (or even competent) teachers, they get hired and tenured because they have a good research program. Some may be good teachers, some may enjoy teaching, but it is a relatively small part of professorial evaluation. For that matter, most professors (at any college or university, small or large) will not have had ANY formal teacher training.
Even for fields that do have research-only institutions (e.g. physics at CERN), research-only institutions employ a tiny percentage of all basic researchers, and the vast majority of basic research is conducted at universities.
Re:Slightly off topic, perhaps... (Score:3, Informative)
You should look up what he actually said, not the twisted versions posted online. It was more or less a re-statement of the earlier talks given about women in science at the conference he was at (which was about women in science). If what you find mentions "physical differences", "innate ability" or anything like that, it's someone else's words. He talked about statistics, test scores and work load. He's an economist and was trying to show that there were good economic reasons for women to not want to do science, even in the absence of discrimination. Instead it came off as women couldn't or shouldn't do science. Oops. How is it that the other speakers at the conference had the same substance in their talks, but didn't receive the response he got?
I'd never disagree that he got railroaded after the media got involved.
It was a big blow to gender equality in science. Things like lifestyle, stability, salary and needless competition discourage women (and Americans in general) from going into physical science. That's a pretty mainstream view in science. Instead of attacking those things, everyone got convinced that if we got rid of a few sexist leaders, everything would be fine. The attacks on Summers initially came from the faculty outside of science, who have not seen first hand what the grad student/postdoc/assistant professor meat-grinder is really like.
Women scientists were justifiably upset when reporters came asking them if they felt they were smart enough to do science. Anyone who's managed to get a science faculty position at Harvard is probably pretty paranoid at that point, and academic politics is not collegial in the least. As a university president, you have to have the expectation that the faculty are going to be as hard on you as possible. Anything which may lessen a professor's available research time or funding will be attacked ruthlessly. The donations stopped coming in, so he had to go.
Re:remote learning (Score:3, Informative)
This seems to be the big paradox of TEAL. From what I've heard among the faculty, it seems to be quite unpopular among students, but by every metric of student progress available, they actually learn substantially more than in traditional lecture classes. My own experience as an undergrad at Caltech suggests that many of the lecture classes were delivered in a way that most benefited the top 5-10 percent of the class, and a large fraction of the students were just trying to survive through the term. I think the interactivity of TEAL is good for letting the teacher know what parts are worth repeating for most people, although one might reasonably argue that the top 5-10 percent of the class is then not getting as much information as they could potentially receive. Other commenters have remarked that under a lecture regime a student could in theory do the in-class exercises at home, but this requires nontrivial initiative, and the interactive classroom more or less removes this variable.
Re:Next stop, Trantor. (Score:3, Informative)
You seem to believe that the sole role of the professor is to teach undergraduate classes. Most professors have at least 7 separate roles: (1) undergraduate classes, (2) undergraduate mentoring, (3) graduate classes, (4) graduate mentoring, (5) research and publishing, (6) grant-writing, and (7) administration.
How these are prioritized is not really up to the average professor, it is determined by the university administration, board of directors, etc. Take your irritation at the current state of affairs to them.