Re: learning from lectures Re: Stone article

Robin Harwood (HARWOOD who-is-at UConnVM.UConn.Edu)
Tue, 07 May 96 19:05:33 EDT

Dewey writes:
>Instead, we need to make it impossible for someone to sit all class long in
>an environment in which no interaction, no meaning-making/negotiation, is
>going on.
>
>So for me an interactive classroom session is one in which students are
>free and safe to engage in the making/negotiation of what is for them new
>meaning and in which some (hopefully, many or most, if not all) actually do
>engage by 'speaking' to each other in class. ('speaking' could also be

Dewey, I agree with you here! The process of engaging students in
meaning-making is what it's all about, and that process is not
isomorphic with a given instructional format (e.g., lecture vs.
seminar). I wonder, however, if certain formats are more conducive
to this process than other formats--or can we really make no
such general statements? I've always felt that a seminar format
is more conducive to student engagement than a lecture format;
of course, engagement or nonengagement can occur in either setting,
but is it more likely to occur in a seminar than in a lecture--or
are all such attempts to generalize specious?

Robin