At 08:31 PM 6/9/2006, Del Thomas Ph D wrote: >I am happy that there is some questioning however, awkward, about >testing what we do and what we use in the class room. >Gerry I will as promised supply more on the teacher/preacher lecture >and learning, including feral learning.
I hope what follows isn't what you meant by "more", because it sure doesn't meet any standards of evidence. >Your comments bring to mind the sage on the stage, stand up and of >course preaching. Pejorative terms do not constitute evidence. >You mention great performance entertainment and other >consumption. There was a test of this that I may have mentioned >earlier. At a math colloquium a few actors gave great lectures that >were essentially nonsense >or at least not good math. Most of those present heaped praise on >the actors and claimed to have learned a lot. Then there is the >great Doonesbury cartoon on >the nonsense lecture...... scribble scribble ........ boy this is >some great stuff. That does not take away in the least from the idea that there are such things as good lectures. I could do the same thing with music; quite a few people would say that what they heard was good music, when in fact it was trite trash (hello, Kenny G!). That doesn't mean there isn't such a thing as good music. The test you mentioned says much more about the audience than anything else. >I seriously considered ending lectures when I found 20 or more >students listening outside the classroom. With further inquiry I >was told by one student >that she signed up for the class because she had been told that one >of my lectures had half the class in tears. While this kind of >attention is seductive >it does not foster adaptive learning. Are you sure about the reason for the tears? >Then when you think about it with the advances it printing, DVD's, >etc., what is the purpose of lectures anyway? > >Whenever, I hear reports of enthralled or spellbinding...red flags >go up. Most of what I have said is documented by fMRI and PET scan data. I'm sorry, but you are way out of your league here, claiming specificity for the findings that just isn't there. That sort of data at present provides only the crudest sorts of results, not "documentation." Besides, just what is wrong with spellbinding if it leads to learning? I've probably learned more from spellbinding books, movies, music etc. than the stuff that could not enchant me. >These data >measure the shape of our thinking and the learning that reshapes >that thinking. It does no such thing. If you are going to pretend to be a scientist, you'll have to at least be a lot more careful in reading and restating conclusions. "Measuring the shape of our thinking" is something so nebulous as to be utterly lacking in meaning. >There are many types of learning, e.g. one trial learning, learned >helplessness and it's counter part learned ignorance. >Gerry, what science can you offer us on scientific learning and the >lecture hall model in college? I don't have to offer a darned thing, because I wasn't the one making rash claims. You've attacked the lecture hall model numerous times without offering so much as a shred of evidence. You remind me very much of an anti-abortionist who writes in to the Oshkosh paper every so often. No matter what bad thing has just happened in the world, it's always ultimately due to the lack of respect we show for human life we show by aborting fetuses (you all know this kind of person--it's our own local Pat Robertson). With you, Del, it so often seems to be the lecture hall model that is the problem, and you offer just as much evidence (none) as that anti-abortionist for causality. Well, I'm not persuaded by pejoratives, and I'm not under the spell of the trendy in education. Show me the evidence. All I can offer in return, if I felt any need to, would be the legions of scientists who have been educated via the "lecture hall model." And again, I would put forth for argument the idea that the problem isn't the lecture hall, but lousy lecturers. (One more bad Powerpoint presentation, and I will trash someone's computer for sure.) Gerry Grzyb --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/teachsoc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
