Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!decuac!rayssd!hxe From: hxe@rayssd.RAY.COM (Heather Emanuel) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching Message-ID: <1766@rayssd.RAY.COM> Date: 18 Jan 88 14:02:10 GMT References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <115@mccc.UUCP> <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <1759@rayssd.RAY.COM> <126@mccc.UUCP> <794@altura.srcsip.UUCP> Sender: hxe@rayssd.RAY.COM (Heather Emanuel @ Raytheon Company, Portsmouth RI) Reply-To: hxe@rayssd.RAY.COM (Heather Emanuel) Organization: Raytheon Company, Portsmouth RI Lines: 74 [I said in an article that if students don't ask questions, it's the instructor's problem (note I did not say "fault"; I said "problem".)] shankar@europa.UUCP (Subash Shankar) responds: > Or, perhaps, they fear negative feedback from their professors, or even > other classmates. I have had one too many class (undergraduate) in which > the professor believes that all undergraduates are ignorami (or whatever > the plural of ignoramus is), and any question they ask is by default a > stupid question and a waste of class time. These professors typically > look aghast at your stupidity, and then answer by reiterating their last > 10 prepared vu-graphs, except at a slower pace. > > Even worse, there is criticism from other students who happen to understand > the material and consider the questioner to be wasting class time, even when > the question is one clearly bothering a majority of the class. This is clearly the point I was trying to make. It is a poor instructor who blames students for not understanding the material, and it is a poor instructor who sets up a class so that some students can `blame' other students. Here is what I would do to counteract this specific situation: Every lecture/discussion cycle (one cycle for each major concept) should include an overview of the concept, some specifics about the concept (examples, etc.), and an interactive review of the concept so the instructor knows the students grasp the concept. The interactive review can consist of hands-on, if the course happens to be a computer class in a room with terminals, for example, or just a quick question and answer session with the instructor asking the questions that are most often asked by students at that point. I, personally, do not just call on students with a list of questions. I group them into two's or three's based on who they're sitting next to, give them the list of questions (or a case study or whatever is appropriate), and have them discuss it and arrive at a mutual solution. I give them about 5 minutes, because this is a *quick* review. Then the class as a whole discusses the answers to the questions, with students answering each other's questions if necessary. Students answering each other's questions solves two problems. First, it gets rid of the "you're wasting my time" from the more advanced students, because they now feel valuable and can prove how `smart' they are. Second, it keeps the instructor from "reiterating their last 10 prepared vu-graphs, except at a slower pace." The instructor should have at least two or three ways of explaining each concept, so if students don't understand it one way they can get it another, but sometimes it is the other students who can make something clear to their classmates where the instructor can't. This is a plus, not a minus or a failure, for the instructor. It's all a case of letting go our pretensions of godliness and just getting the information across in whatever way works best for our students. My whole point in this discussion has been that instructors are arrogant if they ignore the fact that there is an art, a science, to teaching, and if they think they can just stand up and recite facts they're failing their students. I suggested that every instructor should have some education in education. I never said that they all have to go back to school and get an Education degree. There is a huge body of literature, there are seminars galore, there are workshops. All or some of these may be appropriate to a specific style of teaching or field of study. My point is that to ignore all of it is simply negligent. --Heather Emanuel hxe@rayssd.ray.com {allegra,cbosgd,gatech,ihnp4,linus,necntc,raybed2,uiucdcs}!rayssd!hxe -------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't think my company *has* an opinion, so the ones in this article are obviously my own. -------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's often said that life is strange, oh yes, but compared to what?" -Steve Forbert