education for this century.

[lassoharp]

I saw recently that the state of Oregon is proposing doing away with student loans per se.  I forget the details but students would skip the loan application and simply agree to pay back the state X amount for X number of years.  The figures I recall seemed to work about the same as most loans and it sounded like they were granting the state the power to stake claim to their income for life of repayment . . . which almost feels like the situation that traditional loan defaulters fell under when wage garnishment is enforced.  That power is granted from the beginning as part of the terms.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/11/oregon_students_partner/

 

[JohnRoberts]

I saw recently that the state of Oregon is proposing doing away with student loans per se.  I forget the details but students would skip the loan application and simply agree to pay back the state X amount for X number of years.  The figures I recall seemed to work about the same as most loans and it sounded like they were granting the state the power to stake claim to their income for life of repayment . . . which almost feels like the situation that traditional loan defaulters fell under when wage garnishment is enforced.  That power is granted from the beginning as part of the terms.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/11/oregon_students_partner/

  I love it (not), instead of paying back a fixed amount for tuition expense,  they pay back a fixed percentage of future earnings for a fixed period, so they can pursue their personal self-fulfillment and aren't motivated to follow a career path that just earns a high salary.  8) I guess with the "fractions of earnings" they could not work at all for the first 20 years and pay back nothing. I guess it should motivate the institution to imbue the students with merchantable skills if there is a closed loop and feedback from the amount of these future returns rewarding the educators.  Sounds a little too open loop and new age to me.  8) Hopefully the revenue raised from taxing weed will help pay for this.

That said there is a long history of several different state university systems offering discount pricing to state residents. Many people moved to california just to take advantage of that system.  There is an obvious payback from a state helping their own citizens get better educated. Industry needs educated workers, so it attract jobs, etc. 

========
I may have to re-think my kind words for Arne Duncan. No he can still play ball, but recently when asked by a reporter about the lawsuit justice has filed against the state of LA over their school voucher program, he claimed he wasn't aware of it.  I'd say that shows that he doesn't have his eye on the ball... or doesn't care. (Justice claims that the school vouchers interfere with segregation progress).  I suspect that vouchers interfere with the status quo of intransigent school adminstrata..

-------
 
A recent GA court just acquitted a school administrator in the court case about teachers cheating and changing test answers. The larger (circus) trial is still scheduled for next year and this one case may have been over-reach. The public is understandably angry about this teacher's cheating scandal. Politically motivated prosecutors like to deliver perp walks early and often, not this time, not yet,, I think she still has charges pending against her in the larger group trial next year.  Of course they are all innocent until proved guilty.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

I just saw another news report plotting how much better the students are doing in LA since Katrina gave them a clean slate and the state took over more active participation in school administration. While I am not a fan of government taking control I am in favor of students getting a better education.

=====

Another article recently mentioned how businesses that are not getting enough educated workers are starting to fund their own internet courses to inexpensively educate new workers.  I saw uber-libertariaqn Ron Paul on some interview show talking about his participation in preparing course work for home schooling (while his project charges for the classes after about 5th grade).

It seems this is the logical next step for this information technology explosion. Almost free widely available education. Not unlike what we can already get at a good library from reading books, but in video format for the students who never learned how to read.  ;D Surely they can teach them how to read with another free video too.  8)

It seems like a bad joke that we are 10 years into the 21st century and haven't figured this out yet.

JR

 

[hodad]

I just saw another news report plotting how much better the students are doing in LA since Katrina gave them a clean slate

Is this a product of actual improvement or simply a result of getting rid of "those people"--all the displaced poor of NO who went to Texas, Ga., Alabama, etc.?

 

[JohnRoberts]

I just saw another news report plotting how much better the students are doing in LA since Katrina gave them a clean slate

Is this a product of actual improvement or simply a result of getting rid of "those people"--all the displaced poor of NO who went to Texas, Ga., Alabama, etc.?

The mother and student talked about in the article had just finished the process of selecting a new school after their old one was closed down the end of last year due to poor performance.  The mother apparently spent a bunch of time visiting several schools to select the one she ultimately chose.

The charts in the article showed slow gradual improvement since 2007. No overnight jump or step.

I doubt anyone wants to move to LA for the great schools, but better is better. Gov Jindal was still complaining about things that needed to be improved. 

As I've already mentioned Holder and the justice department are suing LA claiming that their changes to the education system is setting back desegregation efforts.

I do not know details about the situation on the ground down there, but watching Holder and how he rolls I suspect his fighting against the reforms in LA are not purely for the benefit of the students. I realize I can not know what he thinks, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.. it may be a duck.

JR

PS: "Those people" is that code for the 9th ward?  The charts were for the entire state and New Orleans alone. Similar trend lines for both.

 

[joaquins]

I'm doubting on popping up this old thread or start a new one, but let's go, if we find a new one would be better we do so...

Radio didn't make a revolution for the education, neither TV, recorded video or computers, clearly, and they were all stated as they will back in the day they were born, and I'm probably missing a few since I didn't saw any of those states when they were made... Mackintosh Portable was already on the market when I was born.

What I'm thinking right at this moment is to accept the fact it won't be a major change, but still we could use the availability of information to improve it a lot. I think the classes should be more about interest, catching students minds, and not giving data which they can get easily (hopefully not from wikibooks).

I don't see a way to start changing it from the top, but if professors start to make small changes to their classes without major changes on the system improvement could be done. I'm looking for a way to approach professors and teachers and invite them to join, they are actual people no big institutions with no access in a first approach, but once the change starts they can approach to the institution much easier.

I don't know the way of telling them which things to change or to improve without being rude, I think many of them would also like some changes, probably the area of my knowledge is the best place to start. I already pointed out few small stuff to some of my teachers and they accepted without much of a problem. Probably a more organized approach with a better overall project could be inserted gradually.

I'm thinking in classes more like, let's do this and see how it works or review this original design, investigate what I mentioned in class at home than the present way which they say learn this set of formulas and come to a test so I know if you memorized this formulas or not. I have a handful of professors who would at least accept to overview a project like this, but I think it should be a complete example of a course, with type of classes, accessory material and method of evaluation more than you should change this and that.

Even if I don't get a single class of this kind, which I probably won't and I don't want a selfish view over this it is still a good thing, since when I have my own company and I need a junior engineer I can get a better one, that's already a good payback.

I would like to ask for your opinion and help to build a first approach on this.

Thanks.
JS

 

[gyraf]

Complex topic, this one.

I spent whole last semester teaching/lecturing statistics for 160 second-year psychologists at my local university - my first real experience in this trade.

At the basis of all successful learning is motivation.

And successful teaching is mainly about supporting and sustaining this motivation. Less about knowledge.

University teaching these days is about stuffing a specific predefined set of tools, methods, and information into the student's heads, so they qualify on some board's requested specifications.

Motivation for statistics is not intrinsic to psychologists (to say the least) - so we use external motivation: Mandatory exams.

Pushed by this external motivation, "good" students often manage to build up what looks like genuine (though temporary) interest in otherwise irrelevant matters. My job as a teacher was to support those few with intrinsic motivation, while externally motivating the rest (i.e. referring to importance of sending in papers and doing well at exam).

On a side note - and into the original topic of this thread - I was puzzled to find out just how much resistance there was from other (old staff) lecturers against the idea of just recording and publishing whole lectures. Our auditorium is fully equipped and set up to record and video everything with almost no effort - yet this has not ever been used since we (dept. of psychology) moved in.

The resistance groups on topic like:

Superficial:
- time consuming
- better when live performed

Deeper:
- feeling bad about possibly being seen by a wider audience - specifically the chance of your colleagues evaluating your performance (related to the unwritten rule, that you never, ever, sit in on a colleague's lecture without explicit permission).
- possibility of lectures becoming a one-off event: it takes a lot of work to plan and execute a good lecture, and most lecturers regard it an investment that must pay back for decades to come.

But there's much more buried in the teaching culture. Something to do with the role of teaching: Once you teach something to someone, your version of the knowledge tends to anneal or "harden", and to get even more true than you initially believed it to be (*). This effect slowly affects your role as a teacher as well, hardening the ways you think teaching should be done..


*see e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Construction_of_Reality

Jakob E.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Like the internet I don't think they can put this genie back in the bottle. The application of modern technology to make education available to more people for less cost is hard to resist.

Like the difference between macro and micro economics, motivating recalcitrant students will always be a challenge. I see a parallel between labor applied in manufacturing and labor applied in teaching. While teachers enjoy the scale of teaching an entire class at the same time, so multiplying that effort, repeating a lecture that could have been recorded is clearly a duplication of effort and wasteful.  Kind of like asking an artist to sing their songs every time someone wants to hear it.

Just like text books are used to support learning, I see no reason why lectures can not be pre-recorded and used the same way, freeing up the teacher for the more important one on one interaction that some students require.  Computer paced presentations can allow the student to progress through the material at their own pace. I recall being bored silly by much of my time spent in classrooms, and was once thrown out of a physics lecture for yawning (picky picky I guess the prof took it personally). I might have enjoyed a physics lecture that was a recording of someone like Feyman, over my ski bum prof who didn't even bring a copy of the text to class. (He might know the physics but was not an inspiring teacher).

@ Joaquins I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. School will always remain limited to teaching fundamentals and more specific applications will be learned from application notes and  by doing on the bench.

JR 

PS: an interesting data point about the government "supporting" education, the Dept of education decided to clamp down on one of the larger for-profit education mills  (Corinthian Colleges) for dubious post education job attainment. Since the student loans were a major fraction of their revenue stream the Feds could use that for leverage. It is unclear if they did it intentionally but the college has shut down 12 campuses and is selling off  85 others.  I do not support the government making the student loans so easy to get that created this monster in the first place.  There is an old saying .. "if you go to bed with the government as a partner, do not expect to get a good nights sleep."  8)

 

[joaquins]

Gyraf:
  Good to know you are on the other side of the classroom now, I don't know how is to teach in front of a class, an opinion on this is always useful. Too bad being seen by others is a bad thing, even if corrected is a chance to get better, not to be taken from the job because you missed something in a course. This kind of error correction, where the person who made the mistake is not punished but rewarding for showing their errors, is being applied in good companies in an attempt to get better error correction, rather than taking people who had mistakes out of the company, give the chance to correct it. About the payoff, that's why intellectual property has been made, you wouldn't call Blackmer each time you need a VCA so he design it for you...
  I only tried to teach few people one at a time and mostly they say they understood what I showed at some point. I don't know how is to be standing in front a hundred people and trying to explain them at the same time, I know it will be very different. In any case I agree with you the motivation, I don't see how a test could be a motivation, when my only motivation is a test I just read few time the day before and I already forgot everything by the day after, I don't learn a thing in that case. When I see a actual application opportunity for a knowledge I probably get it much better. One idea I have but it requires a much bigger change on the system is to have a project in parallel with all courses, so each year or semester you build something putting together what you are learning in all the other courses. On first year you build a lab PS, as the usual project, on second a simple circuit to do whatever, maybe a simple AM radio or an audio preamp to use with your music, the third a multimeter, maybe a few measuring rigs, MCU project, whatever.
  I don't see how to record a class and then using the recorded is more time consuming than making the lecture every single time. Live performance has the advantage than you can interrupt and ask if there is something missed, but once recorded you could polish the version adding any detail was missing originally, so probably no or few asks would been made, which could be attended in a dedicated time.

JR:
  We don't have problems with loans, since here you have one of two options, the first one is completely free education, in national or regional universities. The second is payed and you pay month by month, or a year in advance if you prefer. Usually public free education is related to a higher level, but private expensive education has better hours, which are usually more comfortable for the student to work, there are some exceptions, and private education isn't always lower level, but the title from big public universities is usually more appreciated.
  What I'm aiming to is the reverse process maybe, take as a starting point specifics with application notes or bench and from there learn the fundamentals, so you know what you are looking from or why you are trying to understand the fundamentals. Before starting with Hurwitz analysis you build one or two filters, tune them for specific frequency and then you do the analysis for that specific filter, then you go to the general math on the topic so you know the theory, but for the time you do that you know why you are doing so. The teaching/learning of that particular topic together with a few more about filter synthesis are covered in a few weeks, doing a lab before playing around with filters would help the student to understand why such a filter is designed. You won't get all the specifics in the first place, just a few examples or presentation to then learn the fundamentals and of course you still will need to go for application notes for anything you want to design from scratch.
  I'm in a different position than most mates here, I already know why I would design a filter, but I see a lot of them saying why would I start to design a filter from an analysis like this, I'll never use this tools. I've used those tools just last week for an actual job.

  I think something could be better, I see class mates than are over half of the career and hasn't build a single circuit and wouldn't know how to do so, and with a few courses more they already need to start a professional practice, doesn't looks good from the point of view of the company looking for a EE student and they find the person who comes doesn't know a thing about building a thing. It took me quite a while acquire my solder skills and looking what works better for me, but there are people who never did a single solder. I know is more important the fundamental theory to get from here but still looks like a big thing a little more practice so both, you know how to build something and you are capable of seeing why you would want to learn something. I think this could be better, I don't know exactly how, but I see a few things that seems to be wrong for me.

JS

 

[JohnRoberts]

I used to manage an engineering group so had to hire new engineers. In most cases a degree is considered a given but I have had engineers work for me who started out as technicians and learned on the job, others with an engineering degree who couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag, but not to worry, lots of engineering work is fairly rote testing and connecting the dots. Another good engineer I hired learned electronics from working in his dad's TV repair shop... As I recall he went on to get a patent and did several notable products.

When I was momentarily in school we had a hand's on EE lab, which was one of the few classes I enjoyed enough to attend regularly. It was far from circuit design, but hands-on dealing with very basic electronics. Later when I was running my kit business a lot of my kit sales went to electrical engineering students who were tasked with modifying some circuit as their term project. I very helpfully published design equations for some of my kits, effectively helping them with their homework, while they helped me with more sales.

I never formally taught school classes,, but taught lots of dealer seminars where I familiarized dealers and salespeople with new products and shared some very basic design philosophy as it pertained to specific product design decisions.  Keeping a few dozen adults interested, when half were hung over from too much partying the night before was not trivial, but I found if I had fun with it, they did and it went better.

JR

 

[jdbakker]

At the basis of all successful learning is motivation.

Truer words were never spoken.

The first thing I try to drill into our EE first-years is this:

Welcome to higher education. This is for most of you the first time that you have come to school by choice, rather than compulsion. You could have been anywhere else, but you picked this place. If you don't make the most of it, you're really only cheating yourself.

There are many tools to promote motivation. The one I find works best for me is (awareness of) ownership. That might be hard to implement in a statistics class; I have the luxury that in several courses and projects I can offer our EEs-to-be the opportunity to design and build Stuff That Works, with a relatively large amount of student input on the process. Are you into music? Here, let me help you compare analog and digital approaches to building a gitar tuner. Are you a ham? Sure, let's create a morse code decoder and compare it to other designs that are out there.

(The flip side is that this takes more time than the bean counters think you should spend on a class)

The awareness bit is tricky, especially for those fresh out of high school. I try to get them to figure out what's in it for them. If you spend more time preparing and giving a presentation than the feedback on said presentation is worth, them someone's done something wrong. (This someone may be the student-presenter, or the teacher-audience who can't be bothered to say more than "Thank you and good luck; next please").

[...]
- feeling bad about possibly being seen by a wider audience - specifically the chance of your colleagues evaluating your performance (related to the unwritten rule, that you never, ever, sit in on a colleague's lecture without explicit permission).

I don't get that, I really don't. More eyeballs on my class = more feedback, which can only help me become a better teacher, right? The only caveat is that in some settings you don't want too many teachers around lest the students get too shy to say what they're really thinking.

JDB.
[who, over the past three years, has found himself spending more time teaching/coaching than designing. Go figure.]

 

[joaquins]

I've find on the teachers I had some of them really appreciate as you said the feedback, if I can handle them a document, paper, datasheet, wich could help them to give a better class they would be happy, but I also find ones from the other side, which negates the improvement, few weeks ago I had in a test from a devices course to select a diode for a rectifier, they asked what would be the first things to look when selecting them from the data sheet, I answered average current and reverse voltage as the first two with a few more if I had the chance. This teacher corrected me the average current and told me it's the average power which cares, I didn't find a single data sheet of a rectifier diode with average power rated, all rate average current, he denied that and say still if you have the average current and forward voltage at that current you could look at the power and that's what matters. A different teacher from the same course was more open so I presented the 1N4007 data sheet as an example and said it will be corrected.

There is any kind of people on the world, some of them you get, some of them you don't. I want to start talking about this with the people I understand rather than changing the people I don't. A few better courses in the career would make a better career already, and I don't want to get people out of their job, more like to get people better at their job, starting by the people is open to do so.

JR, I wouldn't be worried hiring someone without a degree who shows knowledge and interest, I'm more worried about the "others with an engineering degree who couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag". What is the point on such a professional? If you could get an 18yo enthusiast just out of the school who only had electronics as a hobby and would probably perform better than someone who expended his last 5 or 6 years TRYING to learn electronics and got a degree. I'm not saying every single one who gets the degree will suck but many of them for sure, then I wouldn't look at the CV if they have the degree or not, but any other experience or previous project even small personal ones.

JS

 

[JohnRoberts]

I've find on the teachers I had some of them really appreciate as you said the feedback, if I can handle them a document, paper, datasheet, wich could help them to give a better class they would be happy, but I also find ones from the other side, which negates the improvement, few weeks ago I had in a test from a devices course to select a diode for a rectifier, they asked what would be the first things to look when selecting them from the data sheet, I answered average current and reverse voltage as the first two with a few more if I had the chance. This teacher corrected me the average current and told me it's the average power which cares, I didn't find a single data sheet of a rectifier diode with average power rated, all rate average current, he denied that and say still if you have the average current and forward voltage at that current you could look at the power and that's what matters. A different teacher from the same course was more open so I presented the 1N4007 data sheet as an example and said it will be corrected.

Actually breakdown voltage is the first spec to look at, if the voltage isn't high enough it will never work.

Current/power/package-dissipation are all kind of related but secondary describing how long it will work. The spec sheet lists current, and package dissipation, but the power is less obvious and forward voltage generally nominal so current is more commonly used.  Minus 10 points for teacher.

There is any kind of people on the world, some of them you get, some of them you don't. I want to start talking about this with the people I understand rather than changing the people I don't. A few better courses in the career would make a better career already, and I don't want to get people out of their job, more like to get people better at their job, starting by the people is open to do so.

I once corrected a night school teacher (after the army I tried again... also dropped out again  :-[ ), but I waited until after the lecture and mentioned it to the teacher (a real engineer at his day job) privately. He said I was right but so what...  8) (It was describing electron motion  between two capacitor plates so not remotely a real world design issue. It was a semiconductor physics course.) So he was right, it didn't really matter very much.  8)

JR, I wouldn't be worried hiring someone without a degree who shows knowledge and interest, I'm more worried about the "others with an engineering degree who couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag". What is the point on such a professional? If you could get an 18yo enthusiast just out of the school who only had electronics as a hobby and would probably perform better than someone who expended his last 5 or 6 years TRYING to learn electronics and got a degree. I'm not saying every single one who gets the degree will suck but many of them for sure, then I wouldn't look at the CV if they have the degree or not, but any other experience or previous project even small personal ones.

JS

The actual work involved inside a major company engineering department is about 5% fun (creative pure design) and 95% dull connecting the dots, preparing bill of material, checking circuits, etc. Back in the good old days we had proper engineers, and schematic draftsman, and technicians, but automation has shifted at lot of the low level technician work onto the engineers so there is value in a degreed engineer who at least knows what I am talking about when I tell him what to try next, and reliably does what I tell him.  He was more valuable than a more creative engineer who never listens or finishes projects after they become less interesting.

JR

PS: I'm a two time loser at that college degree thing, so now I'm just waiting for an honorary degree, but not waiting that hard.  8)

 

[joaquins]

That's why those are the first two I wrote, I think I wrote breakdown voltage, not reverse, but there was no problem with that. I also waited to the lecture to finish and talked about it after. I also had a discussion with the same teacher about 180º phase or reverse polarity, but that's a much more subtle thing so I won't kill anyone on that. It was about emitter follower circuit and I say the transistor doesn't do the Fourier transform, shift 180º and then anti transform, rather inverting the polarity. It's call inverting amplifier stage, not 180º amplifier stage anyway.

I know what you are talking about, but that 95% requires a good use of dedicated software which isn't learned either, it will depend on the actual work if it's 5% or 15% but for sure the most of it is about connecting the dots, still that 5% could take you 50% of the time if you really sucks at it.

I know a lot of examples of successful people who failed at their degree, and every single time I think about that I ask myself if I'm loosing my time or if it worth for something. I should be done in 2 years from now, I've already half the way through but still the question is asked inside my head every single time I put my ass in the chair if this worth it or I should be working on something useful, where I probably will learn even more than studying for a test. Now I have to say I add it to my list, of course we all know about Jobs and even Woz only finished his degree till 87, so for the time he already had pretty much done... I'm not saying he didn't do anything useful after that but he already had done a lot before. If you are looking for your honorary degree you maybe could talk to S.Walker, he is still teaching in NYU so maybe he could give you a tip.

I just don't know, this whole thing doesn't seems right.

JS

 

[JohnRoberts]

Thanks but I was kidding about the honorary degree.

I don't know if this helps but in hindsight I wish I stayed in school and got a degree. Besides the fact that I probably would have avoided being drafted into the army (near end of Viet Nam conflict),  getting a degree exposes you to useful fundamental knowledge, and tells others that you had the discipline to study and master the course material.

Of course at the time I didn't have the discipline, but have no regrets.  I got what I got. Today I think a degree is more expected than back when I was a young.

JR

 

[joaquins]

Thanks but I was kidding about the honorary degree.

I don't know if this helps but in hindsight I wish I stayed in school and got a degree. Besides the fact that I probably would have avoided being drafted into the army (near end of Viet Nam conflict),  getting a degree exposes you to useful fundamental knowledge, and tells others that you had the discipline to study and master the course material.

Of course at the time I didn't have the discipline, but have no regrets.  I got what I got. Today I think a degree is more expected than back when I was a young.

JR

  I know, just commented. He is an example on the other extreme, he got two degrees on the subject, one in the army school to avoid going into the field of WWII, and the second after WWII ended. It doesn't change much, Jobs also recommended getting a degree and he wished he'd got one. Woz in the other hand did finish the school but many years later. I'm going to finish it, already passed the half way and I know it gives some advantages for getting a new job. I'm just saying that I don't know if there is some real advantage on the knowledge from there vs the times it takes and also that I wouldn't be worried to hire someone who didn't got his degree but shows he know what he's talking about. I say I would prefer to hire someone with a better education than the actual. The degree is used to filter some of the people out, but probably not the best way of doing so.

What I'm saying with all this is the education could be better and I'd like to do something about it, even if I don't get the better education for myself, and as I said I find enough motivation on hiring someone in the future with a better education than I'm having since I know that with the education I'm having now the degree tells me nothing. Having it shows the discipline but you could be ruling someone out who didn't finished the degree because it was too boring and find it a waste of time and worked with the same discipline or more than needed in the school, or is trying to in his first big job, and I probably want to get those last rather than the ones with the degree but no good enough knowledge or enthusiasm.

JS

 

[ricardo]

Radio didn't make a revolution for the education, neither TV, recorded video or computers, clearly, and they were all stated as they will back in the day they were born, and I'm probably missing a few since I didn't saw any of those states when they were made...

The really HUGE invention that revolutionised 'education' was BOOKS.

In many ways, the internet has/will have a similar effect.  But the similarity also includes motivation.  Books (and the internet) make it easier for those who are motivated to seek out knowledge & an education.  If you don't have the motivation in the first place, no amount of technology will help you learn.

And you have to bear in mind that, even in Oz, one of the most developed & richest nations in the world, many people in the outback don't have internet .. and are unlikely to have in the future since the present govt. decided this (and education) were low priorities.



As to teaching ... here is one of the best examples of good teaching recorded and worth reproducing http://www.justiceharvard.org/2011/02/episode-08/  sorry about the subject JR  ;D

But even this excellent recorded example lacks a vital ingredient available only to those lucky enough to have been present. 

That's Sandel's interaction with his class.  This comes across strongly in the recording ... but anyone really interested in the subject would be itching to put up their hand and ask something of Sandel or say something to the rest of the class.

A good teacher will use ALL methods available to put something across .. textbooks, excellent recorded stuff like Sandel .. and you can be sure his own lecture will not just parrot the textbooks or Sandel .. but try to put another viewpoint and / or embellish the main point.  And most importantly, gauge the class and get them to participate in the learning process.

"Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them."

This is still as relevant as ever.  But good teachers will use all three points and make all three seem fresh and relevant.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It seems logical to combine pre-recorded lectures with interactive Q and A.  The Q and A can be handled off-line in non-real time  with the better questions incorporated into the lectures, (and dumb questions just answered or the student steered to remedial training) eventually reducing the common questions related to weak presentation areas, or current events (depending on the subject). 

Properly done this can more efficiently utilize teacher and student time.

JR

 

[ricardo]

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/why-has-technology-not-revolutionized-education

The true role of the 'teacher'.  Sandel illustrates it perfectly.

But it only works in 'real life'.

 

[DaveP]

I did a degree course with the Open University in the 80's (last century) in the UK.

Best text books I ever saw and written by 50 plus authors so they covered every angle.

Did it all from home 15 hours a week, today's cost about $1000/year.  Back then it used the BBC2 channel with audio tapes as well, but now its all online.

best
DaveP