Re: Teaching Stats
- From: "Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 13 May 2005 21:55:42 -0700
clem...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hi. I note the conversation on teaching problems in universities. I'd
> like to ask what people do to teach stats.
I think it's safe to say that it depends on what instructional
classroom support your university has, or can afford to have.
For years, I've used overhead=projector(s) and transparencies.
They are inexpensive, easy to prepare, and are widely used in
presentations at professional meetings.
The obvious advantage is that it's pre-prepared, polished, and
easily re-ussable or modified. The blackboard was used for
spontaneous questions and explanations.
A non-negligible advantage is that I could reduce-xerox FOUR
transparences into one hardcopy page for HANDOUT to students,
to alleviate the problem you mentioned of:
> I remember being an undergraduate and having to take notes at a
> sometimes frantic pace.
Using TWO projectors and two sets of transparencies has advantage,
for certain material, of showing formulas or tables on one set,
while illustrate with examples on the other -- without shuffling
slides on one projector.
> I was teaching myself
> with my handouts and my, well not Powerpoint as I use OpenOffice but
> the same sort of thing. And my students were doing ... nothing.
Powerpoint, if done well, is a very effective way of presentation.
You also have the ability to reduce Xerox Power Point presentation
slides for handout. That would free up students' busy note-taking
(of those who are serious about learning <G>) and pay full attention
to what you present.
> even when I got to the bits specially designed to force the students
to
> write notes as important concepts were mentioned by name on the
slides
> were only described verbally. And nobody wrote down anything.
I don't see why you need to "force" anyone to take any notes. Note
taking vary greatly among different individuals. How do you know
someone doesn't have the "photographic memory" of taking notes in
his head? :-) I tend to HAND OUT notes that are IMPORTANT, whether
students take them or not.
> I think that some of the problems in education nowdays is
> that "progress" seems to occur whether or not things actually get
> better, and powerpoint and full sets of notes seem to be part of the
> problem, rather than true progress.
I think that's an over-generalization and unfair indictment to
blame the TOOLS of presentation rather than the MANNER and
SUBSTANCE of the presentation. An effective teacher can teach
well with just about any primitive tool (chalk and board) as
well as fancy (multimedia) teaching TOOLS.
But, conditioned on the same teacher being equally adapt at using
all the available tools, there is no question whatsoever you can
make much more effective presentations with today's fancy gadgets
and audiovisual, multimedia equipments.
> Anyway, getting back to the topic, I'd be curious about how people
who
> teach stats, ..., teach. What sort of techniques do people use that
> they think work. Chalk and blackboard, or full "multimedia"
experience?
The university from which I retired did have classrooms in which each
students plugs in his/her laptop computer, the professor can lecture
from his laptop at the podium, using multimedia material such as those
prepared by Paul Velleman (ActuvStat CD Rom) for classroom use, OR
do LIVE (interactive) computing ocnnected to the university computer,
OR do Powerpoint or other presentations.
The irony of all of this was that the Department that made the greatest
initiative, and made the most effective use of the online, computing
facilities at my former university was the ENGLISH Department, and
for what they did, the University won Time's recognition (in 2001)
*> TIME Magazine announced today that Clemson University is among four
*> colleges and universities named "College of the Year" in its 2001
*> edition of "The Best College for You," an annual college guide
*> issue which arrives on newsstands Monday, Aug. 21.
http://clemsontigers.collegesports.com/genrel/082200aaa.html
While the university received the recognition, ALL the credit should
have gone to the English Department within hte university, though
the university did deserve recognition for spending computer center
funds for those special classrooms.
Alas, the Math Sciences Department was lagging far behind in
taking the TIME and EFFORT make teaching effective by taking advantage
of these limited number of multimedia-computerized classrooms.
Prior to my voluntary-early-retirement in 1999, I might have
been the only one who taught statistics with those facilities.
When I used those hi-tech classrooms for my classes for "tree
stumps", they did stay more awake watching Paul Velleman's
multimedia material in ActivStat
(http://www.webb.org/math/starnes/textbooks.htm)
which was very well done for pedagogical use, but in the end,
"You can bring a horse to water, but you can't teach it to swim
backstroke <G>" prevailed.
The "tree stumps" expected professors to "learn them" (not
teach them), meaning somehow miraculously being able to
transmit knowledge to them without any effort on THEIR part,
and give them an "A" whether they learned anything about the
subject matter of the course or not.
So, I come sadly to this conclusion as a result of "Been There.
Done that" that it's not HOW you teach or what Audio Visual or
Meltimedia Equipments you use to teach, but the maturity
and self-responsibility of the STUDENTS themselves, that
mattered, to make a difference between whether YOUR effective
teaching is worth the Effort YOU put it for them, or worth ZILCH.
-- Bob.
.
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