The Lecture System in Teaching Science, and My Discovery of the "Gutenberg Method" (1986)

On the surface I think many will just read that this method is about reading assigned material before you enter a classroom. But I think the real gist of this method is creating a different, better, relationship between student and teacher to create genuine excitement in imagination.

After 2 years in college I stopped taking notes and just started listening. My GPA went from Deans list to "average," but my learning increased exponentially (ever notice how science types like an excuse to use that work?). I did horrible in classes that were only about memorizing facts, like sociology, even though, I have learned now, that that was a horrible way to approach such an awesome topic.

However, I did excel in classes where I had an "endeavor to conquer the subject matter." Most notably, I ended up working way ahead of my CS degree without realizing it. I was just following a path of reading material with just a few conversations with good professors.

In the end, I learned how to learn. I don't really remember much of anything from any of my coursework (4 years out now). But I know how to learn it again if I need to, and more importantly, there is no topic that I fear approaching for the first time or repeatedly.

This can go somewhat badly. I had a professor who did something like this. He would assign reading and spent a lot of time answering questions, sometimes around a half hour or so. The bad part is that he would not require homework to be turned in until the evening, so the questions have ended up being over homework. This means that if you have done the homework correctly, there is a fair amount of wasted time in class. So it seems to benefit more the people who didn't actually finish the homework before class.

Some people just learn better from hearing, so the lectures are better for them, even if they seem redundant. But reading the book aloud isn't enough. Effective lectures sound different from books: shorter, simpler, more repetitive.

Really, the right thing for a student to do is to read the relevant material before the lecture, then listen for nuances and ask questions in class. Of course, I only occasionally attained this ideal when I was in college.

How does this compare to the oxbridge tutorial method? I haven't actually experienced it; others are probably more knowledgeable in this regard.

Basically, the way I understand it is that while the students do attend lectures, the focus of their education is in "tutorials". In these tutorials, the students are assigned reading, which they then write a paper on, and debate about with their tutor and maybe one other student. Now I never thought this would scale that well, but that seems to be what the article is about. Obviously the large class discussions are less personal, but more doable in a university without the bottomless endowments of Oxford and Cambridge.

I wonder if there will ever be a "Youtube" method. Students watch the previously recorded lecture on video and bring questions based on that.

Huge Block of text written as though someone was speaking it.

Can anyone who's stronger then I, paraphrase it? Thanks!