Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds 166
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Are your lectures droning on? Change it up every 10 minutes with more active teaching techniques and more students will succeed, researchers say. A new study finds that undergraduate students in classes with traditional stand-and-deliver lectures are 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in classes that use more stimulating, so-called active learning methods."
Study finds that topics requiring lecture... (Score:5, Interesting)
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So basically doing continual daily checkups to make sure your students are grasping the material instead of an exam every few weeks will keep the teacher more in tune wit
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About the only time we stopped having a food related lesson was when we were dissecting cats, which was its own special kind of active learning *shudder*
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the lesson going over diabetes must have been both ironic, and hilarious :)
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Study finds that uninterested teachers... (Score:2)
Study finds that uninterested teachers are more likely to both give only lectures and more likely to have students fail.
Anecdotal evidence suggests... (Score:3)
So to answer your concerns I tracked down the publication in PNAS: http://www.pnas.org/content/ea... [pnas.org]
To quote from the article:
The data we analyzed came from two types of studies: (i) randomized trials, where each student was randomly placed in a treatment; and (ii) quasirandom designs where students self-sorted into classes, blind to the treatment at the time of registering fo
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No topic requires lectures. Books and recordings take care of passively absorbed - or, as this study shows, wasted - infodumps just fine. Lectures are simply a leftover from the time they weren't available.
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Very likely a factor.
Anecdotally, the YouTube channel I've learned the most from (in this case, history of weapons) consists almost entirely of a guy standing there lecturing, and occasionally waving around a prop.
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it's probably not something I want to waste my time "learning."
Perhaps the world doesn't revolve around you.
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I will offer the caveat of things like theoretical physics, which have no useful application
As the saying goes, the things you don't know can and in fact do fill quite a few libraries. Lucky for you some other people who do not share your wisdom build all the nice things you use to post inane things on the intarwebs.
Atleast you didn't go the whole distance and offered Mathematics as something with 'no useful application'
Re:Study finds that topics requiring lecture... (Score:5, Insightful)
I will offer the caveat of things like theoretical physics, which have no useful application
I will offer this quote from Particle Fever by Kaplan: "When radio waves were discovered, they weren't called radio waves, because there was no radio at that time."
When the electron was discovered, it was called "the most useless particle".
Quantum Mechanics give the basis of building up semiconductors.
Yeah, right, no useful application.
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Yea, er, after posting I thought, "well that just sounds silly; shoulda said 'no immediatelyuseful application."
The basics (Score:2)
The article is not discussing something like theoretical physics, it's discussing things like Calculus 1 and English Comp. These are prerequisite for learning other subjects. Actually it's pretty generalized and claims "STEM", nothing is mentioned about master or doctorate level classes.
So lets go in two different directions here. First, requirements are not necessarily exiting because they require work to learn. In a culture that equates a web searched answer for wisdom and celebrates idiocy (watch some
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The point is that the world is not a game, and life is not a game. It's not about winning or losing, it's about being human. Sometimes it's fun and things are a blast (raises and promotions), but other times things are not so fun (paying taxes, losing a job). If people are not taught or shown how to cope with the bad in life, we end up with a whole lot of messed up people.
As an example, if you have ever done a project with wood you have probably smacked yourself with a hammer. It's _NORMAL_ and fine tha
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While reading you post I imagined giving a lecture and then in the middle yelling "STOP. Hammer Time!"
I'll have to try that next semester, although the closest I came to teaching about hammers was explaining the $5 password security exploit.
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Which is fine if you have the personality to make it work, in my opinion. I had some incredibly invigorating lectures, and give lectures in a similar way. Engage, question, request counter points, etc... I'm not trying to claim that people should teach in monotone voices and attempt to dull students to death or perhaps to chase them away.
I'm pointing out that this fantasy we keep trying to cram down people's throats is delusional and wrong. Lectures are required, and there is nothing wrong with giving a
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Try these, Richard Feynman Lectures [youtube.com]: The Character of Physical Law: 01 The Law of Gravitation; 02 The Relation of Mathematics and Physics; 03 The Great Conservation Principles; 04 Symmetry in Physical Law; 05 The Distinction of Past and Future; 06 Probability and Uncertainty; 07 Seeking New Laws. QED: 01 Photons - Corpuscles of Light; 02 Fits of Reflection and Transmission - Quantum Behavior; 03 Electrons and their Interactions; 04 New Queries ... The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out ... Richard Fey
study finds dumbasses who can't pay attention... (Score:5, Interesting)
are more likely to fail. so let us design our college curriculum around the retards who drink a 32 ounce mt. dew before class and can't shut off their phone less they miss a tweet. that will punish the people who actually can pay attention and maybe even enjoy the lecture for being smart. the ultimate policy would be that if a frat boy is bored he's allowed to punch a nerd in the arm. that will teach those fucking nerds to pay attention!
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are more likely to fail. so let us design our college curriculum around the retards who drink a 32 ounce mt. dew before class and can't shut off their phone less they miss a tweet. that will punish the people who actually can pay attention and maybe even enjoy the lecture for being smart. the ultimate policy would be that if a frat boy is bored he's allowed to punch a nerd in the arm. that will teach those fucking nerds to pay attention!
As a frat boy who has a CS degree I find this accurate. It's obviously why I picked CS because it had the highest frustration and nerd saturation. This resulted in more frustration but an easier time coping than any other major. Also that's not Mt. Dew it's Nati Lite! True story bro.
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Heaven forbid there are teachers out there who think they haven't achieved perfection and still strive to improve their effectiveness at knowledge transfer. At the university level, students must work hard to learn complex material and instructors equally hard to present it in the most effective manner. There are many examples of excellent students who don't even need a teacher and excellent instructors who could teach a third grader astrophysics, but in general there's a lot of room for improvement from bo
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Yeah, right? I mean, if you want kids to know something you just tell it to them and then if they don't know it it's their own damn fault. Really what are lecturers anyway but hacks who couldn't write their own books? Just put the textbook through a text-to-speach converter and play it for the lecture hall. Then you'll really separate out the bright kids (literally, the bright ones will just leave).
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If the moment something bores you, you can't deal with it, yes, you're a useless dumbass.
Not everything in life is a party and you'll have to deal with it on a regular basis. May as well start in school.
Never lecture when you can have a seminar (Score:1)
Seminars are better because the audience is supposed to ask questions and are regarded as peers, whereas lectures are by those at a higher level to those at a lower level.
Plus, cookies!
Re:Never lecture when you can have a seminar (Score:5, Insightful)
...but I liked lectures...
Learning from someone who knows their subject much better than I do who has taken the time to condense a part of their knowledge into a well structured lecture is the thing I miss most when comparing university to work.
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That's nice and all, but you still have a hard-wired limit to your attention span.
It's pretty much standard in teachers' education (at least in Germany) that you have to "switch gears" from time to time or you may as well rhapsodize about the colour blue - nobody will be really listening after a while.
It doesn't mean that lectures don't work. It just means that only doing lectures is not as effective.
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...but I liked lectures...
Learning from someone who knows their subject much better than I do who has taken the time to condense a part of their knowledge into a well structured lecture is the thing I miss most when comparing university to work.
Agreed. This difference is almost like the difference between people who read, and those who don't.
People who don't read will tell you how much more effective a movie can tell a story, blah, blah, compared to books. Books are boring. They can't stay focused on boring text. etc. etc.
People who read find books interesting and enjoy good reading.
If you do a study on the "effectiveness", by whatever measure, of books vs movie, the result will be skewed by those who don't read.
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Allow me to introduce you to my latest invention: Television.
With it we can electromagnetically record and reproduce the image and sound of a professor, freeing them to do more research or dedicate even more time to interacting with students.
It will surely revolutionize the wor-- What? You've already got a tiny TV in your hand complete with Two Way Radio? My god man! You can even learn while dropping the duce!
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Seminars are better because the audience is supposed to ask questions and are regarded as peers, whereas lectures are by those at a higher level to those at a lower level.
Plus, cookies!
Questions turn presentations into a living hell. Regardless of the quality of the speaker, improperly handling of the constant interruptions makes the event useless. Proper handling, which rarely happens, is a skill that will endear any audience. It's only because of the free cookies, that allows me to let it slide — I'll bite my tongue and think to myself: It's all good.
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Questions turn presentations into a living hell. Regardless of the quality of the speaker, improperly handling of the constant interruptions makes the event useless. Proper handling, which rarely happens, is a skill that will endear any audience. It's only because of the free cookies, that allows me to let it slide — I'll bite my tongue and think to myself: It's all good.
This is why questions are at the end or at a designated point, so that they don't throw things off gear.
Mmmmm cookies.
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Ugh. The only thing worse than lectures are questions from the audience. Well, actually, I have no problems with questions per se, but anybody who interrupts with a question that is going to be answered within the hour as part of the material, or asks a question that was already answered should be subject to some kind of punishment.
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It was always the "i'm going to ask questions to make myself appear engaged and intelligent" crowd who drew my ire in school. (they typically would strike with the inane questions right as the prof was about to wrap up for the day, possibly when letting class out early)
As a university (BSc degree) teacher... (Score:2)
I cannot tell you how much I thank questions. All of them, even the dumbest.
I do try to be very clear and dynamic, but some topics... are just hard to grasp, or I have not found the proper way to teach them... But in some subjects, most students won't even realize they are not getting what I teach. There are a few students who are burnt with questions, and cannot stand on a point they don't understand. Some students insist on their questions even if they are sometimes just too easy.
I thank them. And I try t
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>Seminars are better because the audience is supposed to ask questions and are regarded as peers, whereas lectures are by those at a higher level to those at a lower level.
But the seminar presenter isn't your peer either, and is at a higher level than the students. It just feels more group-huggy.
Maybe where you are, but most of our seminars are fairly distributed with peers, a few above, and a few below. Maybe that's just for advanced research institutions where most people have PhDs or are about to get one, and most seminars are a mix of visiting fellows and locals.
Old school education (Score:3, Insightful)
Prior to 1980, but after the 40's, education had gone the more "interactive" direction. But due to a disparity between educational performance between boys and girls, They switched to more lecture based teaching. The thought was that boys with their more dominant personalities interacted more while the girls "wallflowered" the labs and interactive portions of education. The NEA, feminists and other groups drove the Education dept to change teaching standards to make it more fair for Girls. The end product is yes, more girls in college (61% to 39%) but also a significantly lower percentage of boys in college, and higher dropout rates in certain areas due to a lack of interest. Also, since that point there has been a greatly increased "ADD" and "ADHD" diagnosis rate, since they boys are now expected to sit and listen for hours. This applies to all grade levels through soph/Jr college level ages.
People knew this before but political correctness drove the wrong diagnosis, damaged the ability for boys to get an education for over 30 years and has led to a decline in education for that same period. Instead of finding the right solution (one possibility, Segregation by gender and difference teaching methods) the NEA and cohorts hamstrung 1/2 the US population, and probably that policy was followed in other nations too.
Girls can handle themselves now and are less likely to be "put in the corner" by dominant and more aggressive personalities. Lets bring back more interactive education at ALL levels and give boys a chance again. And quick diagnosing bored boys as ADD because you havent been educated on how to teach anything but a docile girl class. Oh, and bring back punishments for bad behavior and let teachers control their classrooms.
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As the father of a daughter who's been diagnosed ADHD, I'm inclined to take your entire post with a very small Siberian salt mine.
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Ah, your one data point throws off his entire asinine argument! (Seriously, the OP is a moron, but I can't find anywhere in his drivel that he stated only boys can have ADHD.)
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This appears to be what he's implying, don't you think?
Sherberts (Score:5, Interesting)
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Wtf is a "sherbert"?
He works with Dilbert and Dogbert.
Nothing left but work! (Score:2, Interesting)
Studies show homework is ineffective, too. If the trend continues, education won't be deemed useful -- only learning while on the job will be deemed useful. Couple this with the fact that nobody wants to hire "green" people and the ecosystem of learning failure is complete.
Sounds to me like this is begging for something like "free structured internships". You don't pay money for school, but your employer doesn't pay you for your work. As long as there's some oversight ensuring interns aren't stuck with grun
Re:Nothing left but work! (Score:4, Insightful)
Education is not boring (Score:4, Insightful)
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Teachers are.
That's one inconvenient truth. The other is its complement:
students are boring, too.
Just like teachers, not all of them, but those that are in class because they have to, not because they want to. And just as it takes an extraordinary student to activate a boring teacher, it takes an extraordinary teacher to activate a boring student. And here's the kicker - extraordinaries are rare, on both sides. Borings are far, far more common. Besides, with current level of teacher pay, passionate teachers are slowly g
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I remember I used to spend lecture time doing three things:
1) writing notes on things I did not know
2) considering alternative views against what the professor was saying
3) searching and preparing awesome questions for the professor
#3 is by far what motivated me and kept me attentive. If my question was "good" enough, I could get a great response from the professor by tapping into their specific knowledge and experience. Indeed, I could actually shift the course of class discussion if I was strategic about
From The Front Lines... (Score:5, Insightful)
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it is widely known that most humans have an attention span of between 10 to 20 minutes
It may be widely believed, but it's not true for people studying a topic that interests them. In this case their attention span is limited by hunger and/or bladder-capacity.
The oft-quoted 10 minute attention span is applicable to paying attention to material that doesn't interest the subject.
I sure wish... (Score:2, Funny)
someone had told my Dad that.
Easiest for the instructor (Score:4, Interesting)
One reason lectures are so popular is that they are far, far easier for the instructor. Putting together a useful interactive activity is much harder than simply planning what to say. Even incorporating someone else's pre-designed activity is difficult to synchronize with one's own lesson plan. At the grade school level, I believe there is considerable room for improvement through teachers learning how to share and use activity plans.
At the college and graduate school level, it gets much harder on the professor as potential sources of planned activities thin out and specialization increases. Increasing interactivity demands much more time of these professors since most such improvements will have to be custom-designed for the class. Given the social structure of university compensation (research counts, teaching doesn't), I find it hard to see interactivity at the college or grad school level increasing very quickly.
That said, college and grad school courses are perhaps more interactive than they are given credit for. They often meet just a few times a week, reducing the boring lecture hours, and assign a lot of homework, increasing interactivity in a way that fails to appear in the studies cited.
For context, I am an adjunct professor (at the graduate school level). Based on this daily of studies I try to include some interactivity but it's really hard, so that mainly degenerates into a few intra-class status quizzes. My classes tend to meet for 2.5-3 hours per week, and have 5-20 hours of homework on top of that.
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Also, as much as college students SAY they want more activities and less lecture, a large percentage of them grumble and resist any and all activities. Only through dogged persistence can a class (and only if it is small) get used to learning through activities. Once that happens, then their learning really blossoms. But getting them to that point is not easy. I have had students roll their eyes and flat out refuse to briefly discuss a topic with the person sitting next to them - much less engage in a truly
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Interestingnow that I reflect on it, my experiences are similar.
Perhaps it is because humans dislike change?
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One reason lectures are so popular is that they are far, far easier for the instructor.
Apparently, students are easy to fool, because my experience shows that it's easier to fill time with class discussion and "interactive lessons" than a full hour of lecture. Students find multiple choice lecture questions fun, and generally prefer it to lecture, but you have to cover a certain amount of content regardless, and you have a moral responsibility to train students not to have the attention span of a flea.
depends (Score:2)
I think it depends on a number of factors such as the one giving the lecture, the material covered by the lecture, the environment in which the lecture is given, and the one receiving the lecture.
I've had classes in the past that...well...the room was just not that comfortable to listen to a lecture (it was a 3hr class in a slightly overcrowded/warm room in the evening and it was a boring biology class; insta-sleep time).
I've also had classes where the lecturers (this particular class had 3 different profes
Part of the problem is taking notes (Score:4, Interesting)
One of my calculus professors told us on the first day of class that note-taking was forbidden during his lectures. He argued that, in our quest to write down everything he said, we would inevitably miss important points or misunderstand key concepts. I was skeptical at first, but I soon discovered that he was absolutely right. I was able to absorb much more than I thought by listening intently to what he said, and fully focusing on what he drew on the board. In short, his lectures were effective and valuable.
I never took notes in any other class after that, and my grades never suffered from it. In most classes, the lecture materials were made available for later download anyway! Moreover, the freedom to simply pay attention actually made lectures more enjoyable.
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Dictation is the problem. I figured out that I only needed to write down teh occasional key points or formulae to get the most out of lecture time.
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I went the opposite route of never taking notes to taking meticulous notes. But I found in my upper level courses that my brain simply could not keep up with the material at hand. It was instead most important that I had the notes to refer back to for doing the homework, which was where I would actually figure out the material. Trusting only to my brain capabilities during that hour, I never would have parsed it into anything comprehensible. I would also go back and create a comprehensive table of conte
Replace lectures with educational videos (Score:1)
A few years back, between research jobs, I did some time as a community college instructor. And preparing good lectures is hard. It's difficult to appreciate the amount of work that goes into a good lecture unless you've had to do it.
I used to like lectures: the old professor all covered in chalk had a great aesthetic appeal. But then I saw how much work it was.
And the thing is that the same lectures are being given all over the world. There I was - giving a bunch of introductory biology lectures. But a bun
Junk Science (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you can have a controlled study where both groups take the same exams and have the same labs/assignments the "result" is meaningless.
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Unless you can have a controlled study where both groups take the same exams and have the same labs/assignments the "result" is meaningless.
You also have to rely on the sample students being exactly the same. And I mean, exactly. Some people study best with a TV set droning in the background. The lady next to my desk has a radio going. What works for some people doesn't work for others.
Maybe the scientific findings will be that not all people will be the same? That'll be worthwhile research.
Far from junk science... (Score:3)
My Most Memorable Classes (Score:2)
My most memorable classes were not lectures. The purpose of textbooks and assigned reading was to transfer the fundamental information. Homework from the textbook gave you an opportunity to gauge whether or not you were actually learning the material and your ability to apply the processes described by the text. Classrooms were a place to first have a pop quiz (a great way to really gauge if you have retained and/or truly comprehend what you have been learning), then to discuss the reading assignment (So
Depends on the lecturer, doesn't it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course you need to engage them, ask them questions (I find ways to get them to contribute by offering homework points (capped) for interaction), but that's part of preparing a good lecture. I think most of the lectures that are criticized are those prepared by teachers that would rather do something else.
Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
In 230BC, Xun Zi wrote:
"What I hear, I forget. What I say, I remember. What I do, I understand."
or:
"Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand."
Nothing changed !
It's the kids not doing enough work anywhere (Score:1)
Learning is a two way street. Putting everything onto the lectures is counterproductive to say the least. Nowadays, we have students holding unrealistic expectations that course material could be and should be completely understandable by simply going to the lectures, with minimal, if at all, work afterwards. Putting so called activities into the lecture serves the most obvious function, to slow it down. This should become quite clear when we compare what we are teaching with what was taught in the 70s.
Seri
one size fits all (Score:2)
I chuckle at the title, Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds
Just ask all those Mathematicians and Physicists considering lectures are the only form of classroom instruction as it involves breakdown of problems/past experiences from previous works. And considering a lot of the innovations use today originated from these guys says a lot.
Lectures are just a tool in the arsenal, it could be a poor performing teacher as well (one more interested in his research or tenure), putting f
Students vs "students" (Score:2)
There's a big-huge-enormous difference between teaching "students" something because they want to graduate and teaching Students something because they care to know.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that lectures are a fantastic method of exchanging information (i.e. teaching) between two persons (i.e. professor and student) who are passionate about the subject-matter. That used to be why people went to university. It isn't anymore. But it one-day will be again.
Article fails to impress (Score:2)
Valuable as this research may be, it is hardly breaking new ground. Students have complained about unengaging teachers ever since teaching classes was introduced. I don't think this means that the lecture form is suddenly wrong as a means for delivering - it just means that teachers, as always, should learn how to deliver good lectures, and students should learn how to get the best out of a lecture.
A good lecture is one that explains or highlights the things that are not covered well in the text book; it sh
Paying attention and recall is a valuable skill. (Score:4, Insightful)
Learning to pay attention, take notes, and recall oral information is a skill to be learned and mastered just as much as the content of the lecture.
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But studies have been finding this for the past two decades.
I once heard it summarized as: The classroom lecture approach is the best method yet discovered for teaching people who can't read.
Re:I've heard slashdot is behind the times... (Score:4, Insightful)
More it's a symptom of the ADD generation and startlingly shrinking attention spans...
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Re:I've heard slashdot is behind the times... (Score:5, Funny)
It's a method for transferring words from the prof's page to the student's without passing through the brain of either.
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for ultimate efficiency we should just let students pay for the diploma directly, bypassing this archaic system of 'grades, 'studying' and worst of all 'effort'. In the end it's all useless, and only used for gaming interviewers and HR 'professionals'.
for-profit universities are of course approaching this ideal, but a lingering attachment to ~800 years of university level education are still holding them back :(
Re: I've heard slashdot is behind the times... (Score:2)
Despite this, I've had much better results in classes that are tough for me by taking good notes in lectures. Your mind wanders much less because you're already multitasking; your retention is better because both tasks are over the same information. Paraphrasing somebody else's words requires understanding; when you can't keep up, it's a sign you should ask for a clarification.
I often didn't even really study the notes; there
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The first part should read as follows. "The solution here isn't less lecturing, it's teaching people what notes are actually for and how to properly take them. I would generally be considered a 'visual learner...'"
Why the hell can't somebody make a droid app with posting functionality that isn't even more broken than m.slashdot.org?
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News to me. After all, they're a kind of scaled down version of a thing called books, which generally do convey knowledge and have done for hundreds of years.
However I'll concede that this is contingent on actually reading the darn things.
Maybe it's different for reading versus listenin
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What about for those students who won't read?
There's another good old quip to the effect that people who don't read have no advantage over people who can't read.
Re:I've heard slashdot is behind the times... (Score:4, Informative)
But studies have been finding this for the past two decades.
My thoughts exactly. This is apparently a new study, however. It's not clear to me what is new about it other than, perhaps, translating the results into letter-grade equivalents. I like the quote: "it’s almost unethical to be lecturing if you have this data."
And yet, as you point out, this kind of data has been around for decades at least. I think they knew in the 80's if not earlier that knowledge retention is terrible for students listening to lectures compared to other methods (reading, group activities, teaching, etc). But how many professors took that data to heart? Is it a matter of couching it in different terms like letter grades? Probably not because those professors who lecture today either don't know or don't care. In either case they are immune to new studies like this.
Re:I've heard slashdot is behind the times... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most lectures I've been to were lectures because it's practically one of the very few ways one professor can address hundreds of people, of course with smaller groups you could do more but then you need lots of assistants and there are study groups that are essentially students learning on their own. Their main purpose is because having regularly scheduled events drags the undisciplined through the curriculum and because socially it doesn't feel like you've been stuck with your nose in a book all day. Personally I felt the most productive way was just crunching through the book until it made sense, but I think that's very individual.
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(One possible reason why lectures are still so common: It is a cheap teaching method that scales well with class size.)
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I guess I need to read through the studies some more, but I believe that most/many indicators of education show that lecturing is poor (relative to other methods) regardless of the particular talents of the students. Yes, I have felt that I've gotten a lot out of certain lectures. Some lecturers are definitely better than others. Certainly both student and professor abilities can make a huge difference, but on top of that a professor can still do better by adopting a hybrid approach.
Lecture for a bit (less
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Probably not because those professors who lecture today either don't know or don't care.
College is kind of a half-way point between being spoon-fed in elementary school and the real world, where no knowledge is given to you (you have to research it yourself). In college, you have a person in front of the class because they have a lot of knowledge. They might not be the best teachers, but it is your job as a student to get the knowledge from the professor, and they will try to share with you.
Then you get to the real world and you're lucky if you even have documentation. As a student, it will
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80's? What about the 60's and 70's when degrees weren't used to rule out qualified workers just to get cheaper H1B workers? The degree mills have devalued their product, and thus it is entrance exams that are employed since final exams don't mean squat. The truly thirsty for knowledge have always learned themselves, look at Newton, Faraday, Einstein, Feynman, etc. Today degrees have become merely a means to ensure the poor can't compete. The Internet has arrived, and with it brought technologies that ma
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Lectures aren't the problem. Exams are the problem.
I found it much easier to engage with lectures after I finished my degree and had the freedom to learn things without the pressure of being asked arbitrary questions later in the year. Not just random subjects outside my field which suddenly became interesting, but I found I wanted to learn more about things that I touched on in the degree, but couldn't go deeper. As a physicist this is pretty much every subject I was taught.
It also depends a lot on the
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LOL, I give lectures on the ineffectiveness of studies. Who would have thought....
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A bit like a couple of Luchadore.
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This may point to a measurement problem, but you're not forced into it. A desire to learn is all that is needed to master the subject even if the tests are not a reliable indicator of mastery, or are you attempting to say that the instructor is uninterested in teaching even to those who wish to learn?
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Ah, but is it possible to teach yourself?
You can't teach what you don't know, and if you already knew it you don't need to be taught it.
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You must be old. Everything is passive today, people expect to just sit and absorb info and be entertained as well. The professor has to be an entertainer and if they drone on it is THEIR fault the students fail to focus their short attentions away from their smart phones and laptops. It's a TV culture and the new generation has a drug like addiction to instant feedback.
I have a hard time believing people today can even reach 10 minutes. If they TRY sure I don't doubt it, but if they don't try it's probab
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The point of lectures is not to teach you, it is to give you a guided tour of a part of your ignorance.
I am stealing this and putting it on my syllabi from now forward. Thank you for the turn of phrase.
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Teachers, at the very least, show guideposts in unmapped territory. The best understand map is one which you fill in yourself.
n.b.It seems that regardless of what unmapped territory you have yet to discover, you are constantly bombarded daily with the next most logical piece of the puzzle (a simple consequence of reality). 'Teachers', in the academic sense, are less than necessary.
This makes me laugh most when hearing racists speak.
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You're still in the front half of your classes. The amount of rote learning in the last two years should be much less. If not, you are in a crappy department or a crappy school, or have picked crappy instructors.