I rarely post my thoughts and hence may be did not articulate what I wanted to say well enough. My apologies. Nevertheless, it has been very interesting and a lot learned from reading the exchange. And yes these are especially useful for many of us struggling to find appropriate and effective modes of teaching or conveying information to the audience. Thanks a lot everyone! Arathi
-----Original Message----- From: David L. McNeely <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, Jan 25, 2010 9:56 am Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] decline in education, comment on active learning 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
