NPR: Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool
The buzz words are out there: flipped classroom, guide on the side vs. sage on the stage, or as Ian Jukes calls it, “full frontal”.
On January 12th, NPR’s “All Things Considered” aired a story on education titled Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool.
The story quotes analytic proof where lecture produced worse results than small group collaboration, where the groups had simply read the material to be discussed PRIOR to the discussion.
Making sense of the information with a small group of peers in class seems to be where the real learning takes place. The transfer of information can be done by reading or doing a simple Google search.
The physics professors used polleverywhere to ask a question at the beginning of a class after students had read the material. The question had 3 multiple choice answers. The results were shared with the class, then a small group discussion took place. The poll was taken a second time and the results always improved.
I’d like to test this concept at our meeting. Familiarize yourself with the following prior to the meeting:
“I understand how to use an iPod (or cell phones) with WIFI, Safari and polleverywhere.com to conduct a live poll in class.”
We’ll take the first poll (baseline data) at the meeting, discuss in small groups with ipods, then take a second poll. We should quickly see improvement.
Maybe this concept and the technology used can be implemented in our classes.
If you are using polleverywhere or have experience with flipping your classroom, please leave a comment below on your experience.
Related articles
- Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool (npr.org)
- NPR reports on peer instruction (gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com)
