Re: L5-To lecture or not to lecture?

["Dewey Dykstra, Jr." <dykstrad@EMAIL.BOISESTATE.EDU>]

> At 12:38 PM 01-12-99 -0800, you wrote:
> >  I have been experimenting with different teaching methods for four
> > years at a community
> > college. Some of my experiences with active learning were just as
> > negative as Ludwik
> > Kowalski's, but I've reached different conclusions.
> >
> >  (1) Students enjoy a having a variety of activities, especially during
> > classes that
> > are 1.5 hours or longer.
>
> There is a body of research (with a fancy title) that would indicate that
> doing ANYTHING constantly for more than 10-20 min is mind numbing.  _I_
> find the time period to be 7 min (because that is the time between TV
> commercials -- and children's brains have been attuned to this period -- I
> am serious here)  The class participant needs to have a periodic brain
> download where the material "heard" is shifted to a different part of the
> brain so it can be understood and, perhaps, even remembered.
>
> You will notice that even on PBS' Sesame Street that there are
> "commercials" of a sort "sponsored" by one or two letters and/or numbers --
> this for the above strategy.
>
> Even in a interactive presentation, one needs to do something different
> every seven minutes - like work a problem or do a demo.
>
> The PER people know more about this.  Dewey, comments???

Just browsing thru the notes and came across this one.  I would say that
one has to be careful whenever one is tempted to conclude such a thing as
"doing ANYTHING constantly for more than 10-20 min is mind numbing."
There's always the problem of some variable of which one has not taken
account.  My experience of being a classroom teacher at a variety of levels
from 9th grade up and observations during research in classes as young as
4th grade suggests that as long as the students are not really engaged and
one is practicing the transfer of knowledge (usually not consistent with
their world view, hence not particularly comprehensible) by most means I've
experienced the quoted statement is probably an accurate summary leading to
reasonable predictions.

OTOH, I have personally watched 4th graders go at a series of the same type
activities for an hour an a half and complain when the teacher wanted to
move on to something else.  I have had 9th graders sit still for
back-to-back "lecture-demonstration" from me for a full class period two
days in a row.  It strikes me that the issue is engagement in something
that is meaningful to and intriguing to them.  I have observed groups of
6th graders function independently but "on-task" for a full hour from a
single instruction: "Study the motion of the object at your table and
classify it according to the scheme the class devised yesterday.  Be
prepared to report on your conclusions to the class."  The group of 6th
grade boys I watched the most closely in this session functioned in a way
I'd be proud and please to find in college students if it ever happened.
They decided that measurements would be most convincing to their classmates
and what and how to measure.  There were no instructions about this nor was
the equipment already laid out at each table.  The guys noticed a
discrepancy in their data and explored to figure out what the problem was.
They kept at it until they figured it out.  They reminded each other that
the rest of the class would not accept their report if the discrepancy
remained and was noted.

Hence, my conclusion about my own efforts is that if the activity has to
change every seven mins then I have not figured out how to get inside their
heads on the subject and get them engaged.  It's partly a matter of this
and of trying to jolt them out of behaving as if they expect to be
entertained and into getting stirred up about some aspect of the phenomenon
that doesn't go as they would have expected.  I'm certainly not good enough
at these too things, but right now I'm convinced they are the two things I
have to get better at and that if I do the flashes of real magic
(construction of new ideas that fit the phenomena) that I have seen would
become more prevalent in my classes.  It's not me engage them.  It's
getting them to engage over their ideas and the descrepancies they note
between their own and each other's ideas and between their own ideas and
the experiences with the phenomena.

That's my experience.

Dewey


(Please note domain "idbsu" will no longer be valid as of 11/28/99)
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr.                 Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics                  Dept:  (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418      Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University            dykstrad@email.boisestate.edu
1910 University Drive                 Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570                  novice piper: GHB, Uilleann

"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld, 1938.
"Every [person's] world picture is and always remains a construct
of [her or his] mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence."
--E. Schrodinger in Mind and Matter, 1958.
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe."  --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned."  --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.
"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes
and Baby Universes, 1993.
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