Thursday 15 March 2012

Students and examples


I have been teaching students statistics for the last two semesters and one consistent feedback is they want me to go through examples. I have looked at each of my lectures and most of them involve half the slides going through worked examples and putting in real numbers. So I have been puzzled about this - You don't do examples.
Then it dawned on me, reading that students feel more comfortable when they see hand-writing compared to type. That and something the module leader had said about them wanting a chalk and talk, where I would do the examples.
The problem is they do not engage with examples where the whole solution appears, even if it appears in many steps over many slides. They actually need to see the writing process so that they can see it being worked out. It is not enough to show the calculations you have to show calculating!

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