Re: Confessions of a Converted
Lecturer
Some subscribers to
TeamLearnning-L might be interested in Eric Mazur's
<http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/> engaging talk
"Confessions of a Converted Lecturer" at the
University of Maryland on 11 November 2009. The abstract
reads:
"I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were
just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the
material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain
how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of
these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show
how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has improved my
students' performance significantly."
That talk is now on UTube at
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI>; and the abstract,
slides, and references - sometimes obscured in the UTube talk - are at
<http://tinyurl.com/ybc53jw> as a 4 MB pdf.
As of 16 March 2010, Eric's
talk had been viewed by some 12,800 UTube fans!
In contrast, serious articles
in the education literature, often read only by the author and a few
cloistered academic specialists, usually create tsunamis in
educational practice equivalent to those produced by a pebble dropped
into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
For other commentary critical of the passive-student lecture - staple
of U.S. higher education - see e.g.:
a. "Scholars at a Lecture" [Hogarth ((1822);
b. "The Lecture System in
Teaching Science" [Morrison (1986)] - a MUST-READ all-time
classic!;
c. "Science Lectures: A relic of the past? [Mazur (1996)];
d. "The College Lecture, Long Derided, May Be Fading" [Honan
(2002)];
e. "Re: The college lecture may be fading" [Hake
(2002)];
f. "Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing" [Hake (2007)];
g. "At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the
Blackboard" [Rimer (2009)];
h. "Farewell, Lecture?" [Mazur (2009)].
Yes, I'm aware of the seemingly lecture-friendly:
1. "A time for telling" [Schwartz & Bransford (1998)];
2. "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An
Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based,
Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching" [Kirschner, Sweller, &
Clark (2006)].
Regarding Schwartz & Bransford (1998), their abstract ends:". .
.the results indicate that there is a place for lectures and readings
in the classroom IF STUDENTS
HAVE SUFFICIENTLY DIFFERENTIATED DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE TO USE THE
EXPOSITORY MATERIALS IN A GENERATIVE MANNER." [My CAPS.]
In response, I wrote
in "Re: Constructivism in the APB classroom"
[Hake (2008)]:
"But judging from the
abysmally low pre-to-post test average normalized gains on tests of
conceptual understanding for traditional high-school and college
mechanics courses (Hake (1998a,b)], it would appear that the
traditional learning strategy given to students by instructors for
learning physics . . . . does NOT supply students with 'sufficiently
differentiated domain knowledge to use the expository materials in a
generative manner' [a loose translation from the psychologize
might be: "sufficient conceptual understanding to benefit from
the lecture."
Regarding Kirschner, Sweller,
& Clark (2006), as indicated in "Language Ambiguities in
Education Research" [Hake (2008)], their failure to
*operationally* define pedagogical terms hinders any meaningful
interpretation of their paper. Quoting Klahr and Li (2005) "we
suggest that those engaged in discussions about implications and
applications of educational research should focus on clearly defined
instructional methods and procedures, rather than vague labels and
outmoded '-isms.' "
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
Honorary Member, ARFU (Academic Reference Freaks United)
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>
<http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/>
<http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake>,
REFERENCES[Tiny URL's courtesy
<http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66: 64-74; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/ajpv3i.pdf> (84 kB).
Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory
mechanics courses," online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/IEM-2b.pdf> (108 kB). A
crucial companion paper to Hake (1998a).
Hake, R.R. 2002. "Re: The college lecture may be fading,"
online on the OPEN! POD archives at
<http://tinyurl.com/y8kddm6>. Post of 21 Aug 2002 15:34:25-0700
to Chemed-L, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Math-Teach, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, and
POD.
Hake, R.R. 2007. "Re: Mary Burgan's Defense of Lecturing," online
on the OPEN! POD archives at < http://tinyurl.com/yftrgmt>. Post
of 20 Feb 2007 15:45:37-0800 to Chemed-L, PhysLrnR, & POD.
Hake, R.R. 2008a. "Re: Constructivism in the APB classroom,"
online on the OPEN! AERA-K archives at
<http://tinyurl.com/yj556qd>,
Hake, R.R. 2008b. "Language Ambiguities in Education Research,"
submitted to the "Journal of Learning Sciences" on 21 August 2008
but mindlessly rejected; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/LangAmbigEdResC.pdf> (1.2
MB)
Hogarth, W. 1822. "Scholars at a Lecture," online at
<http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/hogarth_william_scholarsatalecture.htm>.
Honan, W.H. 2002. "The College Lecture, Long Derided, May Be
Fading," New York Times, August 14, 2002; online at
<http://tinyurl.com/yjsanjf>.
Kirschner, P.A., J. Sweller, & R.E. Clark. 2006. "Why Minimal
Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure
of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and
Inquiry-Based Teaching." Educational Psychologist 41(2): 75-86;
online at <http://tinyurl.com/3xmp2m> (176 kB).
Klahr, D. & J. Li. 2005. "Cognitive Research and Elementary
Science Instruction: From the Laboratory, to the Classroom, and Back,"
Journal of Science Education and Technology 14(2): 217-238; online as
a 536 kB pdf at <http://tinyurl.com/2b62uk> (536 kB).
Mazur, E. 1996. "Science Lectures: A relic of the past? Physics
World 9: 13-14; online at
<http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/sentFiles/Mazur_22862.pdf> (1
MB).
Mazur, E. 2009. "Farewell, Lecture?" Science 323 (5919):
50-51, 2 January; online to subscribers at
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/323/5910/50>. Free
to
all at <http://tinyurl.com/sbys4>.
Morrison, R.T. 1986. "The
Lecture System in Teaching Science," in "Proceedings
of the Chicago Conferences on Liberal Education, Number 1,
Undergraduate Education in Chemistry and Physics (edited by Marian
R. Rice). The College Center for Curricular Thought: The University of
Chicago, October 18-19, 1989; online at
<http://entropysite.oxy.edu/morrison.html>, thanks to Gutenberg
lecture pioneer Frank Lambert. (The Gutenberg lecture method
recognizes the invention of the printing press!)
Rimer, S. 2009. "At
M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard," New
York Times, 12 January; online at
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13physics.html?_r=1?>
(with 74 comments as of 15 March 2010).
Schwartz, D. L. & J. D. Bransford, 1998. "A time for
telling," Cognition & Instruction 16(4): 475-522; an abstract
is online at
<http://www.jstor.org/pss/3233709>.