Like many others, I am a first-time poster. This thread is extremely
interesting and comes at a perfect time for me as I recently moved to
North America (from Europe) and entered the teaching/academic world.
One major thing though that I noticed here, compared to Europe, and
that wasn't mentioned at all (maybe I missed a thread) is that many
professors seem to be very sensitive about their student's
evaluations, and rightly so as they are judge partly based on these
evaluations. This leads many teachers/professors to either reduce the
level of the class or to become extremely lenient. And since students
pay thousands and thousands of dollars to get an education, it becomes
very difficult to flunk a class. Doesn't this system reduce the level
of education that we all want to pass to our students?
This obviously is not aimed at any of you here as you all seem to be
very interested in teaching and focus on how to get the students
interested. But if there are many professors out there who will give
students the answers, who want to be very nice to them so that they
can get good reviews then it makes your job more difficult as students
are less used to being challenged and think for themselves.
And I am not saying that in Europe things are better. I do not want to
start a discussion comparing EU vs US education!
It is just something that I noticed in the past few months.
Am I completely off?
And when it comes to PPT or no PPT, I believe that we should be as
flexible as possible as the subjects taught at different levels and in
different classroom sizes will require different techniques.
My two cents...
Pedram
On 26-Jan-10, at 7:27 AM, {George Kraemer} wrote:
I haven't been following this thread closely, so apologies if I've
missed a
similar post.
I disagree, at least in part. Powerpoint lectures do not
_necessarily_
disallow an active learning environment. It all depends on the
presentation, no pun intended. I've found that PP frees me from
writing on
the board. I can move as I talk, something that helps me frame the
direction of the lecture. I can better gauge comprehension and
engagement
if I am watching the class, much more so that if my back is to the
students
half the time while I write on a board.
And, if the slides are only outlines that the instructor fleshes out
with
details and examples, I can be sure students will attend class.
Mine know
that's a strategy for failure. The outlined material enables the kind
of "discuss with your partner this: if A and B, what does that
imply about
C?"
Let's not even talk about the value of images. Isn't anyone out
there old
enough to remember lectures for which text on a board was the rule?
