
At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard - tokenadult
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13physics.html
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bz
The general sentiment about the TEAL classes (the ones with the clickers) is
that they are really gimmicky. Supposedly, it gives the professor some
feedback on what concepts are unclear and pushes the students to be attentive.

The problem seems to be that it's just unnecessary structure for something
that's typically dynamic. It at least partially devolved into an attendance
system - students used to just press in for missing friends, until recently
when they had each student buy their own clicker.

~~~
quantumhobbit
I remain convinced that the only reason they require those clickers is to
charge $70-$100 to each student for them.

~~~
JabavuAdams
You're joking! $70-100?

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RK
As a slight thread hijack, which do you prefer, blackboards or whiteboards?

The physicists and mathematicians I know seem to universally prefer
blackboards, while everyone else seems to like whiteboards.

I like whiteboards for any semi-permanent or "data-rich" writing (i.e. multi-
color), but probably prefer blackboards for intense computation.

~~~
cturner
While RK is asking - has anyone had contact with those glass boards that Joel
wrote about recently?

~~~
mseebach
Yep, they're nice.

One thing though, when there's direct light, what's written on the surface
casts a shadow on the painted back-side. It looks a bit odd.

Also, the same effect results in a fuzzy picture when the glass board is used
as a projector screen.

I'd love to experiment with back-lighting the glass board. If would eliminate
the shadow-problem, and look pretty neat, I think.

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mamama
"the professor covered multiple blackboards with mathematical formulas and
explained the principles of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism."

Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that.

~~~
tokenadult
_Walter Lewin did a lot more than just that._

Please tell us more. I've never had the privilege of seeing Walter Lewin in
action.

~~~
harpastum
Professor Lewin has several classes available online through both MIT
OpenCourseWare (OCW) and the iTunes store.

OCW Link: [http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-
IFall1999/Vide...](http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-
IFall1999/VideoLectures/)

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stcredzero
The large lecture hall is an example of something which was necessary due to
past technology constraints but which persists even though it's no longer
optimal. I've taught such classes of 75 to 80 students. Even at that modest
size, there is considerable overhead just from managing that many people.

What we really need are uses of technology that maximize interaction between
students and professors and amongst fellow students. The most productive time
in terms of my teaching were the lab sessions of only 25 students each. That
and office hours, which were attended by a shockingly small number of
students. I suspect that study groups are also highly productive. Technology
should be used to enable more interaction akin to study groups and office
hours.

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harpastum
"As each semester progressed, attendance in [the professor's] introductory
physics courses fell to 50 percent, as it did, he said, for nearly all of his
colleagues...'I had poor attendance, and was failing 10 to 15 percent'"

So, 50 percent of the students aren't coming to class, and they're only
failing 10-15 percent? It sounds like the tests are too easy. If the tests
were more demanding, more students would come to class--which might
(paradoxically) lower the fail rate.

"Unlike in the lectures, attendance counts toward the final grade...[the
professor] gauged the level of understanding in the room by throwing out a
series of multiple-choice questions. The students “voted” with their wireless
“personal response clickers”"

I'm currently a sophomore in Computer Engineering, and I have had several 150+
student lectures that used these clickers to take attendance. It's a simple
way to make sure students come to class. This is a major benefit that has
nothing to do with smaller class sizes.

~~~
mhartl
_It sounds like the tests are too easy._

You might be right that much or most of the higher pass rate is due to higher
attendance, but it's also possible that students were learning plenty from
section, the book, and working on problem sets. When I taught the analogous
course (Physics 1) at Caltech, many of the students skipped lecture entirely.
The failure rate was typically under 5%, and I guarantee it wasn't because the
tests were easy.

One student I remember took it all the way: he skipped everything, including
homework (which counted for 20% of the grade), but he got _perfect_ scores on
all four quizzes and on the final exam. According to the numbers he had an A-
because of the 0 on homework, but everyone in the grading room agreed that was
absurd, and so we gave him a flat A instead.

~~~
rw
1\. - 0.2 = 0.8 is typically a B-. Is there a different grading scale there?

~~~
mhartl
Basically all classes at Caltech are curved. It actually makes a lot of sense,
because it means you can make the tests really hard and leave plenty of room
at the top, which among other things helps reduce the variance due to careless
errors. (If you make a couple minor minus sign mistakes, but nail a hard
problem most people miss, you still come out ahead.) In Physics 1, typically
90%+ was A+, ~82-89% was A.

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gravitycop
And, in a virtual age, what is the point of a physical school?

Answer: there is no point.

~~~
coolnewtoy
I've been reading Stanford's Engineering Everywhere lectures, and the thing
I'm most impressed about is how much support there is for students:

Course-specific computer labs with course-specific lab assistants to help you
walk you through problems as you're coming up against them in learning to
code!

Sections with section leaders who grade your code in front of you and discuss
the strengths and weaknesses of your coding style!

There is no advantage to a huge lecture hall over a podcast. But in-person
mentoring, one-on-one human interaction is the best way to learn if you can
afford it.

~~~
gravitycop
_in-person mentoring, one-on-one human interaction is the best way to learn if
you can afford it._

Is it possible to tell the difference between _in-person presence_ and
_immersive telepresence_?

~~~
tokenadult
_Is it possible to tell the difference between in-person presence and
immersive telepresence?_

Yes. I say this as a parent of a pioneer class student in Stanford's EPGY
Online High School.

I'll acknowledge that the several examples I have seen (not just EPGY OHS) of
distance learning courses have far from immersive telepresence, but I think
there is evolutionary adaptation to real-world, in-person conversation that
isn't taken advantage of by any distance learning communication mode I have
seen.

