<p>BTW, I don’t think the Globe’s Mazur tangent is completely tangential. Education experts pretty much agree that active and interactive learning is much more effective and that the nation’s universities, with their emphasis on specialization and corporatization, have dropped the ball on undergrad teaching. </p>
<p>The Mazur buzzer (or old-fashioned problem sets) work for some fields (science and math). But, how do you get the feedback loop in a humanities or social science course? Multple choice buzzer questions?</p>
<p>The Mazur buzzer is not used universally either at Harvard or elsewhere. It’s been around for at least ten years, I believe. As I’m sure you know, it’s not necessary to suddenly stop a lecture on Shakespeare to test whether someone understand “To be or not to be.”
Are your D’s classes all discussion classes? What a waste of tuition! Id’rather hear Marjorie Garber and Stephen Greenblatt, both on the Harvard faculty, than a 20-year old holding forth on Shakespeare, without benefit of buzzer.</p>
<p>As for profs, do you think that a prof of Renaissance history would be more competent to lead a section in modern Chinese history than a graduate student in Chinese history? Why? There are indeed ways for profs of large courses to reach out to students and to test their knowlege. That’s what tests and weekly response papers are for; that’s what office hours are for. </p>
<p>As for your beloved LACs, I can report that my S1 had classes that sometimes were over 40+. Try to get a conversation going. Well, the prof tried. It did not work very well. At Harvard, you’d have had three sections where it would be possible for the TFs to know every student by name and where it would be possible for the students to actually learn from each other. </p>
<p>I know of another LAC whose classes are capped at 55 for not other reason than that is the largest size room available. 100 people tried to sign up for it; which means 45 disappointed students, some of whom will never have a chance to take it again as it won’t be offered next year. As for the lucky 55, I doubt the prof will feel inclined to assign weekly response papers or organize into discussion sections. Oh, and the prof is an assistant prof, so there’s no way he can dragoon other profs into serving as TAs.</p>
Thank God! I’m trying to imagine my ten year old son & his goofy classmates equipped with buzzers…They’d all be “left behind” for sure.</p>
<p>I can imagine that huge lecture halls filled with eager learners listening to a top-notch lecturer would be a fine learning environment. Sometimes the small seminar settings are dominated by one or two blowhards and little is accomplished.</p>
<p>It seems that most of us agree that some mandated process to assess educational outcomes is a bad idea. Unfortunately, those individuals who have a vested interest or believe in the value of regulations are hard at work. Even without the outcomes measurements, changes are being made to standardize and regulate. This is being done largely through the accreditation process which continues to require more and more specifics. In many areas this approach has resulted in very structured course requirements and course content. Too bad. The intentions are good, but the regulations themselves just become out of date and stiffle improvements and change. </p>
<p>With the exponential growth of rules, laws and regulations, I wonder if eventually our society will sputter, bog down and then grind to a halt.</p>
<p>Actually, StickerShock, not so sure about 10 year olds, but DH uses a variant of the “buzzer thingies” in his high school chem classes, and they are great in that setting. They help him know that the class is moving in the right direction, and gets students engaged that wouldn’t otherwise be listening, and forces them to learn something despite their best efforts not to learn. I’m just not sure how that translates to Harvard, though, other than it enlivens the lectures to ask a question and see what answers you get.</p>
<p>I do have another thought about the “testing” idea. My younger child is not going to Harvard or Dartmouth or Duke or USC or maybe not even the University of Alabama :o. I would really like some concrete data about colleges that take less than stellar students, especially those who are possible late bloomers, and make them scholars. It is one thing to take the entering SAT scores and compare them to the med school admission rates, but what about lesser mortals? And how do we know the med school admits aren’t at the tippy top of the college’s class to begin with. It is great that Wheaton says they take ordinary kids and make them scholars, but prove it to me.</p>
<p>I just know, however, that gov’t mandated measures will probably NOT get me the info I want, just more regulated gobbledygook.</p>