tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post5842663813795421880..comments2024-03-24T09:13:28.758+00:00Comments on The Plashing Vole: Are we just meat in the room?The Plashing Volehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13021407602157515927noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post-39465613332768997462012-04-25T12:10:41.912+01:002012-04-25T12:10:41.912+01:00Artog: that's an appalling way to educate peop...Artog: that's an appalling way to educate people. I'm naturally very sarcastic, but dial it down for students. Guaranteed that if you tease someone for being late, they've been at the hospital with their kids etc. <br /><br />Pat: I totally agree that education is as much about the informal experience and interaction as the formal stuff. If your lectures were that useless, something's gone wrong, but the informal stuff is essential. I learned a lot more from chatting with colleagues and swapping ideas than I did from my PGCE, that's for sure.The Plashing Volehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13021407602157515927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post-48498981444012408312012-04-25T11:30:55.356+01:002012-04-25T11:30:55.356+01:00I still maintain that most of my lectures were stu...I still maintain that most of my lectures were study breaks, time when the brain could be switched off. The learning occurred in dialogue with fellow students about the ideas that we had access to through notes, or via the internet, and through working through problems.<br /><br />The couple of lecture series which were of value were the ones where I could snooze through them, thus disabling the internal censor which otherwise pointed out all the inconsistencies in the material being presented. These were lectures for modules where there was an element of regurgitation of facts required...Pat Parslownoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post-7445430215547393352012-04-25T10:27:43.477+01:002012-04-25T10:27:43.477+01:00Fear. My own attendance was pretty good (I went to...Fear. My own attendance was pretty good (I went to Lampeter, lectures were, by and large, the best bet on any given day). Two lecturers though were guaranteed attendance, one because he made such cutting remarks if you did dare skip a lecture and the other because he was a fucking nutter who'd shout at people whose behaviour he found wanting (failure to show up, inability to parse ancient Greek sentences, etc.).Artoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01846359529440273892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153845628469776909.post-64320906409523723182012-04-25T10:18:27.790+01:002012-04-25T10:18:27.790+01:00Compulsory attendance is always an interesting poi...Compulsory attendance is always an interesting point. Here in UniTown, attendance at seminars is, compulsory and we take registers. Theoretically, attendance is monitored by the department, and action taken against those who fail to attend. <br /><br />In practice this doesn't happen. As an undergrad I stopped attending the seminars of a very eminent professor who was a rubbish teacher, and who told me to "shut up" when I ventured an opinion that did not agree with him. Nobody questioned my non-attendance, which was a great disappointment, as I was fully prepared to tell the faculty exactly why I was no longer attending.<br /><br />Our lectures, however, in the law school at least, are not compulsory, but most of them are recorded and published on our intranet as mp3 files. This is really useful. For working undergrads you can pick them up when you need them, with the powerpoint slides, and I understand that they are used as a revision tool. <br /><br />This seems to me to be a good way of working. My experience of the Law School is that they are really supportive of non-trad students, and will try and arrange seminars that are easy for students to attend - for example for those that travel some distance, seminars will be arranged on one day to minimise the need for travel. But then, experience also shows that the non-trad students are usually the ones that make the effort to come to seminars, and those students who have to roll out of bed and into the seminar rooms are usually those who don't attend!<br /><br />And, when marking essays, you can usually identify those students who haven't bothered to attend seminars. They rarely achieve the good marks.oldgirlatunihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17538521335250860191noreply@blogger.com