More learning - less teaching?

Abstract

Who gets the most satisfaction from a lecture? At the opening of the annual conference of the Education Group of The Institute of Physics the Group Chairman, Jon Ogborn, ventured to suggest that it was usually the lecturer because he plays the most active role. To promote learning and satisfaction amongst students there is a strong case for considering forms of education in which they participate more actively than in a traditional class or lecture. The aim of the conference was to study such forms of activity, not of course by hearing lectures about them but by participation and discussion. In this we were fortunate to have the guidance of people with wide experience of some such ways of learning.Each of us present could only participate fully in two activities, and each will have left with different experiences. But these are experiences which will influence our teaching, one way or other, more profoundly than would have been the case had we merely sat through some lectures and (perhaps?) studied our notes and textbooks afterwards. The conference proved its own point, but the debate on how to apply the title 'More learning-less teaching?' in different areas of education in physics will no doubt continue for as long as physics is taught-or learnt.

Conferences: making a good thing rather better?

“…However, they experience it much more intensively and there is evidence that, while participants receive less information in workshops than in lectures, they absorb it at a much deeper level. I first experimented with workshops at a Physics Education Conference (Whitworth, 1974) and one lesson which I learnt then I have confirmed many times since. 'It was noticeable that even after two and a half hours of a workshop some members wanted to stay on.…”