Won't argue with any of what you say. I think some of the rest of us
have tried to make that point, with more attention to specifics. Your
post may have made it more effectively, because it was more direct. I
might disagree slightly about one thing. I think that many teachers,
some of them even good teachers, might cause a good student to fail to
learn particular material, if the student is bothered enough by the
teacher's approach to turn away -- perhaps to seek a different path,
while most other students the teacher is working with are doing very
well. On the other hand, I have also seen students become more
interested in a subject, and pursue it successfully, because a teacher
opened their eyes to areas they had been little interested in before. I
don't suppose this would qualify as causing a poor student to learn, but
it certainly qualifies as leading a disinterested student to interest
and therefore learning.
But yes, in general, teachers, good or bad, can only successfully teach
students who choose to participate. Those who choose not to participate
will of course not learn. As you said, all learning is active. Some
others have pointed out that the teacher's choice of activity may not
fit every student at every time, even though the student is active in
the learning process (though the poster may not have considered the
learning as being "active" in the sense that we have been discussing).
I think that by participating in this discussion, I have learned,
actively. Some of the discussion, especially some of the ideas
expressed by some student and recently graduated participants, I wish I
had heard years ago, when I was personally struggling with appropriate
and effective modes of teaching. Thank you, David Mc
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 7:17 AM, Thomas Martin wrote:
First let me say that all learning is active, cause if the student
doesn't
get active about actually studying and trying to understand the
material,
they're not going to learn it. Second, let me say that in my
experience, it
would take an incredibly bad teacher to keep a good student from
learning
just as it takes an incredibly good teacher to get a bad student to
learn.
Third, I would go so far as to say a majority of the
pro-active-learning/anti-lecture crowd (at least the ones I've
encountered)
paint an unfairly dismal picture of what a lecture is. Lectures do
not have
to be someone "spewing facts" as was previously stated. In fact, if
you took
the "lecturer" that spewed disjointed facts at their students and
forced
them to do "active learning" my guess is that the result would be that
they
spewed disjointed activities. A good teacher has a feel, for lack of
a
better term, for what information is most suited to lecture delivery,
or
active dialog or inquiry, or tactile experience, and acts accordingly.
There is no one best technique.
Beware the true believer!
Tom Martin
Western Carolina University
