
Lecture Me. Really - abalashov
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/lecture-me-really.html
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r-w
This would work well if all lessons and lectures were so carefully thought
out. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers (I can’t speak of college professors
from a place of experience) simply rephrase textbook concepts, couching them
in knowledgeable-sounding language, and supplement them with diagrams ripped
from Google Images (and sometimes even YouTube videos only tangentially
related to the lesson, in an effort to retain students’ attention). From what
I’ve gleaned by asking teachers critical questions, often they themselves do
not understand the concepts they teach. In other cases, the teacher ends up
doing the opposite, digesting and bulletizing the notes for the students and
thereby severely curtailing the benefit of handwritten note-taking and
stopping the critical thinking process before it starts.

In my opinion, the Socratic method wins out in this noisy environment of ideal
teaching setups that are not so ideal in practice: when students are given a
common goal, a resource for information, and guidance and encouragement, they
not only think critically about the material, but also unwittingly develop an
intuitive memory thereof. I also believe that having the teacher interface
directly with students ensures that they do more than just the bare
minimum—that they are enthused about and absorb the subject matter at hand.

