<p>January 13, 2009
At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
By SARA RIMER
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. </p>
<p>. . . . </p>
<p>The physics department has replaced the traditional large introductory lecture with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. Last fall, after years of experimentation and debate and resistance from students, who initially petitioned against it, the department made the change permanent. Already, attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent.</p>
<p>Really, attendance is up and failure rate is down? Could it be that "TEAL" is working, or that since attendance is part of the grade, students have to show up to get a good grade, and that failure rates can be adjusted by simply adjusting the curve so less people fail?</p>
<p>There would be riots in the Hovses if they tried to implement something like this at Caltech.</p>
<p>It's a pathetic move by MIT. I wonder if it has anything to do with their US News ranking, since small class sizes are part of the ranking methodology.</p>
<p>^To be honest, I don't think it's an institutional move -- the physics department just thinks it's really cool, unfortunately.</p>
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Really, attendance is up and failure rate is down? Could it be that "TEAL" is working, or that since attendance is part of the grade, students have to show up to get a good grade, and that failure rates can be adjusted by simply adjusting the curve so less people fail?
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I think it's more of the latter than the former. They've just made the class easier so the numbers look better.</p>
<p>I dislike TEAL for many of the same reasons I dislike some of the campus dining proposals we've been discussing on the board recently -- if some people want a shiny, full-of-technology easyfest physics class, let them take it, but don't take away the option to have a traditional lecture-style class. Let people vote with their feet.</p>
<p>I chose to take the traditional lecture-based physics classes (8.01X and 8.02X) before everybody was required to take TEAL, and I was very happy. I'm a lecture learner, and I love traditional chalk talk lectures. Powerpoint slides and "interactive problem solving" don't do it for me.</p>
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I chose to take the traditional lecture-based physics classes (8.01X and 8.02X) before everybody was required to take TEAL, and I was very happy. I'm a lecture learner, and I love traditional chalk talk lectures. Powerpoint slides and "interactive problem solving" don't do it for me.
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<p>Can't students sign up for 8.012 and 8.022 if they want a traditional lecture?</p>
<p>I completely agree about interactive learning/powerpoints. I absolutely hate powerpoint lectures that half my teachers give at school, and active learning doesn't work for me. I'd take a good lecture any day.</p>
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Students can absolutely take 8.012/8.022 if they want a traditional lecture. But not everybody can or should take 8.012/8.022.
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<p>OK, but how many students are there who would find 8.012/8.022 too difficult, but are not served by TEAL? How many professors, TAs, etc. are available to serve these students? A university can only do but so much.</p>
<p>My D actually liked TEAL. But again she is not a physics major and hated physics in HS. It was an efficient way for her to master the basics. When there was something she didn't understand, she could get an answer right then. </p>
<p>It is clear that you can't get the philosphical depth of a Feynman lecture in that format or even the magic of a Lewin lecture, but frankly how many professors can really teach introductory physics like Feynman or Lewin. </p>
<p>It is a mixed blessing, but there is no doubt the "surround" lecture format is here to stay. Studies have shown students can cram more information through focused, interactive multi-sensory learning than passive listening. If you are going to drink from a firehose, you can just increase the water flow with something like TEAL. I don't necessarily agree that a TEAL class would have to be a dumbed down version. </p>
<p>I wouldn't be surprised to see the TEAL format expanded over time to other intro course such as calculus , intro bio and chem. It is part of the school's strategy of making the pre-requisite science core more digestible to the MIT undergrads. Some very information intensive classes like orgo, would in my opinion also vastly benefit from a TEAL format. </p>
<p>I do agree though that advanced students should retain the option to opt out of TEAL. That is what 8.012/8.022 is for.</p>
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OK, but how many students are there who would find 8.012/8.022 too difficult, but are not served by TEAL? How many professors, TAs, etc. are available to serve these students? A university can only do but so much.
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My freshman year, the offerings in E&M were 8.02, 8.02X, 8.02T, and 8.022. Clearly MIT didn't have a problem fielding all of these courses in the past.</p>
<p>At any rate, there's no change in overall student demand with a greater number of classes -- professors and TAs would be assigned to different courses according to the number of students who preregistered.</p>
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At any rate, there's no change in overall student demand with a greater number of classes -- professors and TAs would be assigned to different courses according to the number of students who preregistered.
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</p>
<p>No change in demand in terms of the number of students who preregistered, but possibly in the amount of resources expended per student to get them all to a point where they've learned physics well enough to move on to classes that require physics.</p>
<p>At any rate, if you believe that the US is lagging behind other countries in producing STEM graduates, MIT (and other schools) have to do something to decrease the number of people who leave these majors due to academic discouragement. Another way of looking at this is it more likely that a typical student will become discouraged due to academic struggles because they have to take TEAL, or because it is not an option?</p>
<p>Perhaps a compromise would be to allow students to do the TEAL exercises on their own. They wouldn't be required to show up to regular class meetings, but would have to show up at the labs to demonstrate their knowledge of the material.</p>
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[quote]
At any rate, if you believe that the US is lagging behind other countries in producing STEM graduates, MIT (and other schools) have to do something to decrease the number of people who leave these majors due to academic discouragement. Another way of looking at this is it more likely that a typical student will become discouraged due to academic struggles because they have to take TEAL, or because it is not an option?
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</p>
<p>I don't believe that is a concern at MIT where pretty much everybody graduates in a STEM field. </p>
<p>If you look at the history of TEAL, it was introduced specifically to reduce the failure rate in intro physics which averaged over 10-12%. That rate has been cut by half and I don't really believe it is because the curriculum has been dumbed down. The material covered and tests have essentially remained the same. If fewer students fail the class, then they don't need to retake it, and can move to their major faster. TEAL was never meant to train physics majors. Most advanced students in physics would place out 8.01 and go straight to 8.022 or even beyond. It was really designed to help those who never enjoyed physics in the first place acquire the core competency required for more advanced subjects. </p>
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Perhaps a compromise would be to allow students to do the TEAL exercises on their own.
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<p>That wouldn't work as the whole idea of TEAL is an interactive class where students work in small teams and interact with the professors in real time. </p>
<p>I believe that under the newly proposed GIR there is only one required physics class anyway so that many students will be able to get away with at most one TEAL class. (Unless they introduce TEAL for other subjects, which I believe they will).</p>
<p>The failure rate in freshman physics may have dropped, but this isn't necessarily due to TEAL. My TEAL class was taught by the main organizer of the TEAL program, and I happened to fail the first test due to a combination of a weak physics background and probably a lack of studying. When I went in to talk to my professor, he basically told me that he didn't believe I was capable of passing the class based on the knowledge that I had shown on the test, and that I wasn't cut out for 8.01t. He basically informed me that my only option was to drop down into 8.01L, or to retake physics in the spring.</p>
<p>I don't think I'm going to be able to adequately communicate the condescending manner in which he told me this, but he certainly didn't offer any additional help, or really any more advice other than 'you are incapable of passing this class, you lack basic physics knowledge and you are not capable of picking up enough material to be able to be successful'. I know a few other people that had the same experiences, in different sections of the class as well, and the majority of my friends that were successful in 8.01t had already had AP physics in high school. We joke that AP physics is a prerequisite for passing 8.01t, which isn't really the way it should be.</p>
<p>My largest problem with TEAL was perhaps due to my own learning style - seeing numerous examples of problems isn't particularly helpful to me; I need more details on how / why we are solving the problem in this fashion. But I had a terrible experience with the material and with my professor, and I suspect that the lower failure rate may be partially due to professors strongly encouraging students to switch into 8.01L, which, in my opinion, is a far easier class.</p>
<p>My son spent a semester with Prof. Dourmashkin, a TEAL creator, but in a small-group format (neither Teal nor large-lecture hall Physics). He seemed to enjoy it enough to have influenced his decision to major in Physics. However, he told me the TEAL concept is clearly controversial and not very popular.</p>
<p>The average on the 8.01 final this year was, I believe, around a 50. I had taken AP Physics Mechanics in high school, and didn't really learn anything new in 8.01 at all. I got around a 90 on the final. If TEAL prepared its students that much worse for the 8.01 final than my high school mechanics class did, something is wrong.</p>
<p>One of the problems I have with TEAL is the experiments. They don't teach you anything at all. You follow the directions on them, and half the time they don't work because of technology/setup failures, and the rest of the time you don't absorb anything because they never ever require you to think. You just follow their directions word for word. Also, we never have a chance to go over homework, or to ask questions on homework. They make it sound like the professors are always available, but that's not true. They don't generally take questions, since they time their lectures such that they JUST have enough time to cover the material. You can call over a TA, but a lot of the time they don't give good answers. This is even more of a problem if you can't make office hours. Finally, Mastering Physics. It's due on Sunday and Tuesday nights. If you're away for the weekend, sucks for you. If you happen to have a really busy few days, also sucks for you. They don't make it easy to plan ahead. (This happened to me several times.)</p>
<p>On Mastering Physics, there's always a question in which you have to read the book or watch a Lewin lecture and answer a question about it (often it was just "Do you understand this section?"). I think it's very telling that watching a Lewin lecture was deemed equivalent to reading the book for several days worth of class. (For the record, I think we only covered about 2/3 of the material in 8.01 TEAL that Lewin covered in his 8.01 lectures. Sure, Lewin is an exceptional lecturer, but shouldn't the material covered still be the same?)</p>
<p>I think the reason the failure rate is down is because of the way they've distributed points. There are a million little assignments throughout the semester. Some of them might be worth 3 points, and you'll literally get 1/3 for putting your name on the page/writing down anything at all. I actually got a 1/3 on a question that I just flat out did not know the answer to, at all- so instead of even trying to solve it, I wrote a cutesy joke answer. Ta-da! 33% Obviously not enough to pass the course with, but certainly enough to push some "high F"s over the line.</p>