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June 17, 2006
What do you get out of class?
Well? What do you get out of class?
I got of some interesting feedback from people on this last semester because I recorded audio of the lectures for my medical school class last semester. The feedback mainly came in the form of "Thanks Niels, I that was so helpful when I . . ." or ". . . because I . . .". Anyway, what I gathered was that there are six basic reasons to go to class:
1) Any handouts that the professor chooses to deliver in class and only in class.
2) Announcements that may not be recorded. Professors ought record these before-class and after-class announcements as part of their audio, but they often don't.
3) A sort of stamp—a certification—that you couldn't possibly have gotten more out of the course.
4) Reading the nuances of the professor's performance for clues on emphasis and organization. This is exactly the same content that that the intelligence community seeks through HUMINT—human intelligence. About 80% of this can be gotten through audio, but the 20% you miss, really sucks. The organizational framework for knowledge is most firm after going to class.
5) Socializing with your peers. This is an investment in the future, but there are other ways to socialize with peers, if you're the sort of person who doesn't mind losing their hearing to overamped static, I mean, music, or inhaling a pack's worth of second-hand smoke in a crowded bar. In fact, I think what you'll find is that the people who go to class end up consorting more with each other, and those who don't go to class end up consorting a lot with a few poeple and individually less with more people, but that's pure speculation.
6) Until the advent of slides posted on the Internet and podcasting, the final reason to go to class was the organizational framework, the schema, the professor provides, and this is, even with podcasting, still somewhat true, and it remains the fundamental thing the student needs from the professor. More about that in a previous post.
I've also heard that people who don't go to class spend more time studying directly.
Posted by Niels Olson at June 17, 2006 11:46 PM
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