cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw) (07/19/85)
In article <1372@mnetor.UUCP> sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) writes: >> ...I said to hell with protocol, and started distributing my >> lecture notes BEFORE starting to talk. Suddenly everyone was looking at me! >> And asking questions! And thinking! I'll never go back to the other way. >> >> Bob Schwanke > >When I was a student, I found that I paid much more attention to the lecture >when I was taking notes than when I was reading printed notes. It also made >me feel much more like a participant in the whole process, and most importantly >it kept me awake! >-- >Sophie Quigley My basic axioms: 1) If you fall asleep in class, you shouldn't be there... there are more comfortable places to miss class (i.e. in bed). 2) If the prof. is reading the text to you, don't show up, you're wasting your time. 3) If the prof hand out notes, you know that the notes you have in hand are correct. One does not waste time in trying to see what is being scribbled up front. One is also given the chance to look ahead in the notes & try to understand. Copying notes is a guarantee that you aren't learning while you are writing. Actually, a prof for one of my 3rd year CS courses said at the beginning of the term that he would essentially read the book to us. He gave a very detailed outline, so I showed up to about 2 classes after the first one. I got something like 92% in the course, and spent about 10 hours total in doing it. (Not counting assignments which were programming on a heavily loaded weirdo machine.) The point I'm trying to make here is that your time is wasted when you spend an hour listening to something that can be read by yourself twice in 15 minutes. It is also a waste of effort (now assuming that the book is hard to understand) to make you write down stuff that the prof has written down anyway. Chris Shaw watmath!watmum!cdshaw or cdshaw@watmath University of Waterloo A doze by any other name would be asleep. -Hamlet
greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) (07/21/85)
As a UNIX instructor at NYU, I tried a variety of different methods
until I found one that 1) I was comfortable with and 2)that actually
helped me get the point across.
Handing out notes before class, I felt, restricted me only teaching
what was on the notes sheet, instead of allowing the class to pull
the lecture into a side crook that hadn't been discussed.
As an example: while discussing file protection and permissions, someone
asked how this related to actual UNIX system security. From there we
moved on to topics related, before returning to the next item on
my agenda for the day.
Some might argue that a teacher should never let a class pull them
off the lesson plan. I disagree.
Anyway, I now only give handouts for things that like directory
listings, or other type of "example" stuff.
--
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Ross M. Greenberg @ Time Inc, New York
--------->{vax135 | ihnp4}!timeinc!greenber<---------
I highly doubt that Time Inc. would make me their spokesperson.
----
"I was riding a wombat this morning, 'till it broke its leg. I had to
shoot it" -- Ranger on Camelbccarty@whuts.UUCP (Brian C. Carty) (07/22/85)
> My basic axioms: > > 1) If you fall asleep in class, you shouldn't be there... there are more > comfortable places to miss class (i.e. in bed). > > 2) If the prof. is reading the text to you, don't show up, you're wasting your > time. > > 3) If the prof hand out notes, you know that the notes you have in hand > are correct. One does not waste time in trying to see what is being scribbled > up front. One is also given the chance to look ahead in the notes & try to > understand. Copying notes is a guarantee that you aren't learning while you are > writing. > Now if only the lecturers who most desperately need to pass out lecture notes before each class did so (the ones who simply talk about a whole lot of things without writing anything on the board), I'm sure that many more students would get more out of going to lecture. Wasting time trying to phrase the professor's ideas have always been one of my biggest complaints with these types. -- Brian C. Carty AT&T Bell Laboratories - Piscataway, NJ ..!{ihnp4,allegra}!whuts!bccarty
ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (07/23/85)
I don't hand out lecture notes as I teach because that makes it very hard for me to restructure the whole class on the fly halfway through when it's plain that no one understood the first half. What is this doing on net.rumor, anyway?
dwl10@amdahl.UUCP (Dave Lowrey) (07/23/85)
I have attended many classes that were offered by various CPU/software
vendors (IBM, DEC, AMDAHL, AT&T). These classes are usually taught
with the aid of overhead projected 'foils'. These foils contained
either a diagram of some sort, or a bulleted list of points that
were to be discussed. The student is given copies of the foils so
that they may take notes.
The problem lies in the fact that I take lousy notes, insted I preferr
to just listen to the instructor. Therefor, whenever I go to look
back at the foils years later, they don't give me information, only
topics of discusssion.
An exception to this was an AT&T UNIX Internals class I took last
year. They used foils, and gave us copies of them in a loose leaf
notebook. If you opened your book flat, on the right hand page was
the foil being discussed, and on the left hand page (the back of the
previous foil) were all the notes you would ever need!
I use these notes to this day as an effective reference manual.
--
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Dave Lowrey
"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question....
....or is it?"
...!(<sun,cbosgd,ihnp4}!amdahl!dwl10
[ The opinions expressed <may> be those of the author and not necessarily
those of his most eminent employer. ]rws@gypsy.UUCP (07/25/85)
I never found that handing out lecture notes required me to stick to them ... ... in fact, I could omit part of the lecture and still hope the students got something from the notes! Bob Schwanke Siemens Research Princeton, NJ 08540-6668 seismo!princeton!siemens!rws
essachs@ihuxl.UUCP (Ed Sachs) (07/25/85)
Just like the old definition of LECTURE: The process by which information is transferred from the notes of the teacher to the notebooks of the students without passing through the brains of either. -- Ed Sachs AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, IL ihnp4!ihuxl!essachs