Learning from imperfect lectures

[Roman Suzi]

On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, Geoff Gerrietts wrote:
>Quoting Peter Hansen (peter at engcorp.com):
>> Roman Suzi wrote:
>> >
>> > I do not remember who told me this, but it seems that students
>> > better learn from poorly constructed lectures than perfect ones.
>> > Because, they need to be _active_ in constructing their own system
>> > rather than _passively_ "eat" readymaid knowledge frames.
>>
>> Wow.  Deep... I like this (to me) completely new idea.
>
>This idea was new to me, too, in form but not in concept. Pedagogical
>coursework -- like the stuff they teach to new grad students who are
>going to be teaching assistants, or the stuff they teach to people in
>education programs -- frequently talks about how important it is to
>engage the student, and how involving them and making them think about
>the material is the teacher's primary task, with presenting the
>material actually being secondary.

I could continue on this and say that teachers who got only highest mark
at pedagogical college are often... bad teachers. And ones who had hard
time learning are (not as a rule, but noticebly) better.

Because they are nearer to the schoolchildren they teach.

We call it "3-mark effect" (I do not know how to translate it right) : in
Russia we have marks 2, 3, 4, 5, five being highest mark.

OK, world-class professors are better teachers than former 3-mark
student, but these are rare in usual schools.

That is why I am poor teacher: I know the subject, but am a pathological
5-marker ;-) And I left teaching some time ago.

>The actual practice of an "imperfect presentation", though, is
>something I'd not considered before -- the idea of leaving blanks for
>the student to fill in is both appealing and a little alarming.

I remember how I was shocked with printed lectures of some western
university: they were _perfect_. They were easy to grasp but I had a
feeling that they beautify the picture (dumb it down). In our universities
we usually write lectures (conspects) manually. So, their presentation is
less than perfect.

>> Anyone know where it came from?  References to a study or something?
>
>> strong interest in the audience ahead of it (and after).  The
>> presentation struck me at the time as being _very_ "polished", but
>> perhaps with too little unsaid for someone to question, or think
>> about.  I suspect this is the reason why it didn't seem to work.
>
>Interesting anecdotal evidence. I can think of several cases where
>I've felt somewhat the same way about presentations that I've given.
>It's often taught me and my audience both more if my presentation is
>struggling to hold together at the seams.

Some lecturers even allow errors to check attention of the
audience. And it works too.

In the estimation theory there are models where it is impossible to make
estimation of some values if inputs aren't noisy! The same is true in
genetics where mutations and selection make species stronger.

This means trial-and-error way is not unfounded.

Sincerely yours, Roman Suzi
-- 
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