On 3/30/2010 4:49 PM, Swingman wrote:
On 3/30/2010 3:13 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:

The guy who taught my Calculus and Analytic Geometry class, by contrast,
was clear, soft-spoken, and wrote everything on the blackboard as he
lectured. He wrote with his right hand and erased with his left as he
went, with pauses as he walked back to the left side of the board. It
would have been humorous if I hadn't been in a permanent panic to get
things into my notes before they disappeared.

Just having the youngest out of college, I know that taking notes in
class today can be as simple as hitting a button and letting the
recording device/laptop tape the lecture.

I can't help but think that letting technology do it for you probably
skips a vital link in the synapses that the process of writing it down
completes. I was thinking about that the other day when responding to
the thread on width, length, etc.

Botany prof drew pictures of plant cell structures on a blackboard and
students were required to handcopy them to a notebook that was part of
the course grade ....and today, 45 years later, those pictures I copied
from that blackboard are still vivid in my mind.

Also had a Korean grad student that taught an advanced math course full
of words like 'vector-value', 'differential', etc. that he couldn't
pronounce in an understandable manner to anyone ... a brilliant guy, but
he cost most of us a grade point or two.


One of the best teachers I ever had was my analytical geometry teacher
in high school. I had many more in college but he was the best.

As for technology in the class room while there are negatives, there are
all so some strong positives. If I have a computer in physical
chemistry I may have a better understanding of how the various equation
performed.

Of course you go to school to learn what you do not know, and to learn
to learn.