Re: Vygotsky conference abstracts

Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Sun, 31 Mar 96 12:26:12 EST

Lacking any way to index the quality of lectures, live or canned,
it's a little hard to imagine the kind of experimental design that
would be worth the effort to do. Not to mention the lack of
convincing test measures, or the probable need to look at the
more complex and large-scale system of practices in which they
are embedded (i.e. a 'course') in order to get any conclusions
that would be of practical use in decision-making.

The issues here are not just Professor A live vs Professor A on
tape, but Terrific Professor X on tape vs. Boring Professors Y1,
Y2, Y3, Yn live.

What will shift our work from lecturing to sleepy audiences of
500-1000 students vs. all the other things we can do is probably
not research results on educational effectiveness, anyway.
It is the likely economics of mass higher education (which is
to say the politics of that economics). Policy decisions are only
rationalized by research, not actually based on it; especially
when the interests of those deciding differ significantly from
the interests of those affected, and their political power likewise.

JAY.

JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU