Blog Post #14

I did my blog post on  Pseudoteaching: MIT Physics by Frank Noschese.  Even though I went through everything to try and get this assignment done, I finally accomplished it. This was a very interesting article.

What is Pseudoteaching?
A term inspired by Don Meyer's pseudotext, pseudoteaching find textbook problems that appear to relate to real world situations. Mr. Noschese and Mr. Burk define pseudoteaching as something you realize you are doing after you have attempted a lesson that looks as if it should result in student learning. upon further reflection, its realized that the lesson was flawed and involve minimal learning. Basically Pseudoteaching is looking good and feeling like things are being learned, but in reality little learning actually takes place.

Mr. Noschese goes on to give an example of pseudoteaching done in the physics lectures of Walter Lewins at MIT. It is explained how Mr. Lewins makes his lectures look like good teaching and he appears to be full of energy and enjoy teaching physics to his students. the problem is, his students are not really learning from the lectures that appear to be "Good teaching". Many of the students do not attend class and many are failing. Why should they attend Class? Mr. Lewins is doing all of the work, all of the lecturing, and lets not forget the lectures are available online for the students. So the students really have no reason to show up for class. As a solution to this problem of pseudoteaching, MIT created interactive learning such as, Technology Enhanced Active Learning, at their school. The idea is to get the students more involved in the lectures so that they will actually learn and not just be"Lectured too". Mr. Noschese believes high quality technology in not really needed a lot in the classroom in order to teach and students learn. He think more whiteboards will do the trick.

I really do not agree much with decreasing technology. I do not feel that the tools used in teaching will really change what the students learn. I think the way the teacher presents the lesson and involve the students makes the greater difference. Less talking and more student interaction!!!