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From: gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Becoming CAI literate
Message-ID: <526@odyssey.ATT.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 88 01:53:48 GMT
References: <1988Mar2.125247.28809@lsuc.uucp> <1988Mar9.183038.915@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Middletown, NJ
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> More efficient from both viewpoints, actually, for many things, is to use
> people for tutoring and *textbooks* for teaching.  I have never understood
> why it is desirable to lecture at people who know how to read. ...

Benjamin Armstrong has replied fully to most of Henry's points.  I'd like
to add that the static quality of print is better suited for some subjects
than others.  When I was teaching c.s., I found that I could portray
things that were *happening* in the computer with some quick eraser work
on the chalkboard, far more effectively than the textbook could portray
them with sequences of diagrams.  You can overwrite memory on a chalk-
board; you can't on a printed page.

Then, too, c.s. is hard for most of the students who take it up, and
their difficulties and misunderstandings require especial apprehension
and wit to clear up.  My students, bless them, were quick to interrupt
with questions for me, and I in turn threw plenty of questions at them.

Of course you can say the same of lecturers as of textbooks--the good
ones are too few!
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...!ihnp4!odyssey!gls