I personally dislike lecture courses, but have always thought that
at least students could participate actively by conceptualizing and
writing down ideas as they attempt to follow the lecture. As I recall,
this was how I personally learned during lecture courses as an
undergraduate--the act of writing served some process of internalization
of the ideas in the lecture. However, I was surprised to learn from
my undergraduates that they find this activity prevents them from really
learning! They said that note-taking becomes a frantic and passive
act of copying with no time for reflection, and that they have learned
the most in lecture courses where they are given an outline of the
lecture beforehand, and then they are free to listen to and reflect upon
the ideas being presented. I was also surprised to hear that they HATE
overheads! I had always thought that overheads aided the lecture by
providing a visual as well as an auditory mode of input, but my students
informed me that overheads increase the amount of frantic-copying-down-
without-thinking that they do.
Personally, I have tried to get away from lecturing as much as possible,
putting students instead in small groups with specific tasks. I've found
that initially they find this confusing and intimidating, but during
the course of the semester most of them decide they actually learn more
in the small groups than they do in the lecture.
Any thoughts about lecture courses and under what circumstances note-taking
might or might not become an active participation in the learning process?
Any thoughts about how we can promote active participation in the
undergraduate classroom--particularly given the university constraints
of large lecture courses?
Robin Harwood