Even in college, most of my profs still used overhead transparencies and a blackboard with chalk (state school ) and that was only two years ago.  It was kinda funny when the university replaced all the blackboards without asking anyone and the profs were complaining for the semester about how much of a pain whiteboards/markers are.  of course there were LCD projectors for powerpoint and all that good stuff everywhere too.  never saw a smartboard tho but like i said--state school.

but scantrons were used in bigger classes like crazy.  they tried the whole i-clicker thing but they didn't seem to be too popular especially since they're 15 $

Last edited by theBryan (2010 January 04, 6:55 pm)

Jarvik7 wrote:

My experience in university is that taking notes is a waste of time. It takes away from your concentration and (if you're like me) you only use them come test time. It is far better for profs to give outlines (or a copy of their ppt slides) out before hand so you can follow along in class and make BRIEF notes instead of trying to transcribe everything that happens.

If I ever go back to Canada I'll be teaching Japanese, and I won't make my students take notes.

This is the exact reason why I make my students take notes. The textbook we use at the school where I teach (secondary school) does not give enough information for them to study solely from that.
And while they are copying down the notes, I wait until they're done, so it doesn't take away from their concentration. The key with taking notes is to make them brief, like you said. If you are trying to write down everything that happens, you are doing something wrong.
I make the outline on the board for the students to copy down and I make sure that it contains everything they need. This way, they will also learn gradually how to make outlines of their own, and by the time they get to college/university they will know how to make proper notes.
Lastly, if I'd give them the outline myself, they'd stuff it in their bags and not look at it again until (maybe) test time. I prefer them to write the outline down themselves so they've at least focused on the topic once.

Perhaps you can also take some tips from this for your next university class?

As for the topic: We are getting more smartboards, but I don't have one yet in my classroom (I can't wait, though; I'm getting sick of all this chalk dust). However, we still use VCR sometimes (though I try to use DVD mostly as I have a laptop and a beamer in my classroom). The beamer makes OHP obsolete, though I must say I have a colleague who used OHP until about a year ago (when he also got a laptop and a beamer). Scranton sheets: There's still a few colleagues that use them. I never have.

Some people at my university would still try to write down everything that the prof said, even if we were given an outline beforehand. I guess they were of the opinion that learning must always be active rather than passive. Ultimately there is no right or wrong way to approach lectures & classes in higher education, since they only account for a tiny minority of your overall study time. Their primary function is social, in my experience.

Last edited by harhol (2010 January 10, 5:24 am)

Funny, when I read the previous post about a college which bought smartboards even though they weren't able to be the tenure fees. I was like of course, laying of those costs is a much larger gain than buying a few smartboards.
But I must confess I was kinda outraged when I went to my yogaclass, and found out not only that there were large plasmascreens mended to the ceiling halfway the rooms, they also had installed some of those shiny smartboards. And boy, are they still shiny when the lights are out. It was still on even though it was late at night, and it's not like we use them for the yogaclass, but everything was still on! Clearly electricity savings aren't a priority either.
I know the costs of these boards, projectors, computers, plasmascreens and new furniture is but a fraction of the millions, maybe even billions of euros the university needs to save. But still, I'm pretty sure at least the university magazine would have been very happy with those funds, but who needs a university magazine anyway, right, you don't need any critical and informative sounds in a university, do you?
grmbl *goes off to fume over her studybooks, so she'll be out of that hellhole asap*

Also: http://www.physorg.com/news183318312.html - A computer per student leads to higher performance than traditional classroom settings

I think the wealthiest RevTK members should buy us poor folks laptops.

Last edited by nest0r (2010 January 22, 10:46 pm)