The post Pseudoteaching: MIT Physics is very interesting. After reading about pseudoteaching, I thought back to some of the lectures I have attended and realized, pseudoteaching is VERY common. John Burk and Frank Noschese define pseudoteaching as "something you realize you’re doing after you have attempted a lesson which from the outset looks like it should result in student learning, but upon further reflection, you realize that the very lesson itself was flawed and involved minimal learning".
To show a prime example of pseudoteaching they used Walter Lewin and his lectures on physics. He ran through his lectures three times each before presenting them to a class. He was very enthusiastic and had many demonstrations to get his points across. They looked effortless and from the outside it seemed like his students were learning a lot. That's just it, it LOOKED like his students were learning a lot. In reality they were just sitting there watching him lecture. The students were not participating in the learning process because their professor was doing all of the talking AND demonstrating. It has been proven that in order to retain maximal information, people must DO. People have to engage and interact in order to learn and not forget. So, when Walter Lewin's class attendance dropped 40% from the beginning of the semester and people were still failing physics, there was clearly something wrong with the teaching style and something needed to be changed.
To solve this problem MIT created TEAL. This stands for technology-enabled active learning. Instead of students relying on memorizing formulas, TEAL helps them adapt general methods of problem solving to problems they have never seen before, and apply abstract concepts to new situations. The mission of TEAL was to create problem solving, self-learners. Students are encouraged to ask a lot of questions and work in groups to solve problems. To get the students to answer questions and work together to find the correct answer, "clicker questions" were implemented. Students can answer a question on the screen using their personal clicker. TEAL also added experiments to the classroom. This way students could actually participate in the classroom and get hands-on experience. All of the students were actively participating in their learning experience. Some professors did not like the idea of TEAL, but over time it has proved itself to be a fantastic way for students to learn.
Encouraging teachers to find other ways of teaching besides lecturing is a wonderful idea. In the posts from above they use the perfect example: "you do not learn to play the piano, ride a bike, or play sports by just watching someone else do it". To learn these things you MUST do them. Teachers need to let their students experience for themselves how and why things work. By doing this their students will not just memorize formulas, definitions, and certain facts about a subject, they will actually learn! The "clicker questions" are a great idea. Throughout the class period, students will be able to see what they are struggling with and they can get help right then and there. If the teacher is not lecturing, and all of the students are actively learning, then students with questions are not interrupting anyone else's learning experience.
Pseudoteaching is definitely an easier route, but after reading this post I do not see why anyone would be okay with spending all that time preparing lectures that really don't teach anything at all. That makes no sense to me, and I believe that the benefits of using a "TEAL approach" to teaching far outweigh the difficulties you might face while using this teaching style.
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