I don't know if it's an official policy, or just a trend in the English department, but many of my professors devote a significant amount of class time to group work, or the seminar-like format. I guess the idea is that students have short attention spans, and cannot sit for a full hour and a half, and listen to a prof lecture (even I have difficulty staying awake now and then). Maybe this works for some students—maybe this covers different learning styles too.
Today I'd like to go on record to say that I am sick of seminars. When it's stated from the beginning, as in the Liberal Studies department, that there is going to be a large seminar component, and a lot of planning has gone into it, and students are prepared, that is fine. I'm not complaining about that. But in the English department, when a prof breaks the class into several small groups, and gives them a discussion question, I don't find this useful at all. One reason is that a large number of the students in a group have usually not read the material under discussion (now and then this includes myself), and are not prepared to talk about it; but the main reason is that what I really want to hear is the lecture.
Maybe what I'm saying has gone out of fashion, but I'm paying to hear the prof lecture. I'm here to learn from the prof, not from my fellow students.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
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I am in the history department and I feel similiarily about the discussion questions. History classes are almost pure lecture but from time to time we are assigned readings. I find that it would be much easier to get the information from the teacher in normal lecture format, easier to study as well.
ReplyDeleteHowever, perhaps the point is that when we read the articles and discuss them we are learning a different skill, one that will be useful when we no longer have professors to tell us what's what. That is, the ability to read an article and draw out its deeper meaning. It is annoying in the university context, and I certainly understand the sentiment of wanting to hear from your professors rather than fellow students, but perhaps that's the light we are supposed to look at it in.
I am also an English major and find the same thing. Maybe in a small fourth year class a discussion can be good, but not in others. I as well enjoy the traditional lecture style.
ReplyDeleteI think a healthy balance is ideal.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to sit and listen to any Prof for an entire class, because I think that's too passive a learning environment for me. Just absorbing information, and, in the English department, what often amounts to the Prof's personal opinion.
I want some sense of open discussion. The feeling that anything said in class can be challenged. And to feel as if we, as students, are being challenged to think and engage with the ideas presented. To contribute our own ideas, and see how they fare in the minds of other students and professors.
Daniel Burgoyne does this well. Often he'll start with a short lecture of sorts, trying to stimulate thought, and then move into groups with discussion questions; after, we converge as a class and present our ideas as a whole. Daniel's always there to give his two cents, offer alternative opinions, etc. It's usually very smooth, and satisfying. Feels like everyone sort of wins.
The ideal balance. It's usually rather slick. Hard to catch.