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Really I can't see that it's much worse than watching the professor write & talk to himself for an hour.
by Herring 17y ago
Really I can't see that it's much worse than watching the professor write & talk to himself for an hour.
- olefoo 17y agoDepends on the professor. Some of the most intellectually challenging lectures I've heard were delivered with no more equipment than a chalkboard.
- Herring 17y agoI don't doubt it, I'm just saying a bad lecture is probably more about the professor's (& student's) incompetence than about the tools. Eg I'd rather have slides to write on if he's just going to copy from the text.
- krschultz 17y agoBecause when you take notes, you internalize a lot more than simply reading. It really makes a difference. Worse is when the professor snaps the slides faster than you can write them - meaning much faster than you can comprehend them. Sure I can watch someone flash basic history slides by but when it comes to math, science, obscure stuff there is no way I can catch it off a slide better than if the professor is writing.
- imgabe 17y agoFor me there was a huge difference between a professor going through the process of deriving a formula on a board versus just having it flash up on a Powerpoint slide. You could probably use Powerpoint to simulate that, but most professors don't. Even if you do show the intermediate steps, I think the gradual process of watching something being written out (as well as then having the time to write it out yourself) let's it sink in better. Even something like having to decipher the professor's handwriting contributes to better understanding. If it's ambiguous what a particular symbol is, you're forced to think harder about the context it's in to figure it out. I'm not saying lectures should be given with obfuscated notes or anything, but that split second of interpretation your brain has to do adds value in the end.