Re: Hands-on?

Randal L. Schwartz writes:
 > >>>>> "William" == William R Ward <[email protected]> writes:
 > 
 > William>   There is never a slide for the tangent that you drift off
 > William> into as a result of a student's question, etc.  I prefer the
 > William> freedom afforded by a white board, where I do all the
 > William> material by hand.
 > 
 > That'd probably work fine for 1-5 students, but there's no way to keep
 > on track, week after week, for 15 students, with that method.

I really resent this remark.  I have no trouble keeping on track, week
after week, with 30-50 students using this method.  I also don't
usually do lesson plans; all my lectures are pretty much entirely ad-lib.

 > As Nat said, it's good to have both canned stuff and a way to digress.
 > I know *my* students would suffer if I had to handwrite all the stuff
 > we do in the llama course week after week.  For one, they'd never be
 > able to read any of my handwriting at the end of the day. :)

Well if you're doing the same class one week to the next, then that is
a somewhat different kettle of fish.  I do the classes a few times a
year, so there's a lot more variety.  Also, I'm only "on" for an hour
and a half, unlike the all-day classes you teach.

 > I know that when I write something on the board, the next 45 seconds
 > of student attention is on COPYING the stuff on the board, not
 > listening to me.  So I've just lost 45 seconds of valuable class time.
 > If I talk during that 45 seconds, I almost always have to repeat it
 > because someone wasn't listening.  If I don't talk (like sometimes I
 > hum the theme from Jepoardy), I bore the people that aren't making
 > notes. :) And then there's the "when can I erase" question... since
 > some people take notes only when they've decided that what I've
 > written is interesting enough... so if I want to go on to the next
 > thing, I have to wait until I get a response to "everyone got this --
 > I'm gonna erase" question.

I don't usually have trouble with erasing.  I only erase a couple of
times during a lecture, and I leave material up for 20-30 minutes.  If
they can't manage to copy it down in that time, it's their own fault.
Also asking questions like that doesn't usually work for me - most of
the students are foreigners who are too polite to object to anything I
might do.  Half of them call me "professor" until I can correct them,
and then they just call me "sir" all the time.

 > So William, do you just present 1/3 as fast then (time to write, time
 > to copy, time to talk)?  Actually curious now. :)

I spend a lot of time doing Q&A because I like to be very interactive,
so while I'm answering one student's questions, the others might be
working on their notes.  Also, when I write on the board, I read aloud
what I'm putting up, and most students are writing down at the same
time I am, which makes it fairly efficient.  I also allow fairly
frequent pauses for people to contemplate what we're talking about,
think of questions, update their notes, etc.

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward        [email protected]      http://www.bayview.com/~hermit/
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