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i'm late reading all these entries about lecturing as well, but i have to comment on the drift from the original question into the practical issues of teaching big classes. practical solutions to the problem of large classes are welcome, but surely part of the answer to the question, "what's wrong with lecturing?" has to include a mention of paolo friere's critique of passive learning--what he calls the 'banking concept of education'--wherein the students are passive receptacles for the information that instructors 'deposit' into them. friere attributes the perpetuation of oppression to this construct, in that it prevents the liberation of human consciousness and stifles the ability for people to critically co-create their culture. friere's alternative, within which many of the practical techniques that folks have been mentioning in this discussion can be classified, is what he calls 'problem-posing education,' which promotes dialogue, interaction, critical thinking, reflection, and action. to my mind, the move away from lecturing in our field--and across the disciplines--was more than a practical measure or a response to problems of evaluation. it was a political move to subvert the structures of authority in the classroom a la friere AND a praxis designed to reify theories about the social construction of knowledge a la kuhn, bruffee, geertz and others, wherein the authority of knowledge resides in the "community of knowledgeable peers," to use bruffee's phrase, rather than in the teacher-as-authority. anyhoo, that's how i'd answer the good professor's question. cheers! --susan dobra ______________________________________________________________________________ _ From: CASLL/Inkshed on Mon, Jul 21, 1997 9:13 pm Subject: Re: big classes, writing, lecturing I'm a bit behind in reading this interesting cluster, but Russ and Marcy have both mentioned something like journaling within a computer network. I'd be interested in learning the mechanics of how you do this. Others can chip in as well, since others I'm sure do this. Would you have time, Marcy, to share the MECHANICS of the process, including the kind of computer network setup, the class "assignment" about what is discussed in the open electronic journal, any student reactions, and so on. Russ, you mentioned that a good student refused to see this as a valuable exercise, so she dropped your class. Any further comments on that--apart from the fact that she didn't see this as a suitable way of impressing the prof? And Russ, is your network the same as Marcy's? For either of you, or for both: does participation in the networked journaling lead to grades in some form? Thanks for any input--from anyone. Henry ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Henry A. Hubert, Chair | [log in to unmask] Department of English and Modern Languages . University College of the Cariboo | Ph. 250-828-5236 P.O. Box 3010 . FAX 250-371-5697 Kamloops, B. C. | V2C 5N3 . -------------------------------------------------------------------------