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The lecture backlash signals an evolving vision of college as participatory exercise. Gone are the days when the professor could recite a textbook in class. The watchword of today is “active learning.” Students are working experiments, solving problems, answering questions — or at least registering an opinion on an interactive “smartboard” with an electronic clicker.

The lecture backlash signals an evolving vision of college as participatory exercise. Gone are the days when the professor could recite a textbook in class. The watchword of today is “active learning.” Students are working experiments, solving problems, answering questions — or at least registering an opinion on an interactive “smartboard” with an electronic clicker.

A new biology course had 22 freshmen fan out across campus last fall for dirt samples, from which each student culled a new and heretofore unknown virus. Now, the class has picked one virus for genetic mapping.

Not all the ideas are new. At the University of Maryland College Park, engineering professors eliminated introductory lecture courses in 1991. Since then, students have spent the crucial first year engaged in actual engineering, building swing sets, helicopters and hovercrafts.

“I point to the following unwelcome truth: much  as we might dislike the implications, research is showing that didactic exposition of abstract  ideas and lines of reasoning (however engaging and lucid we might try to make them) to passive  listeners yields pathetically thin results in learning and understanding – except in the very small percentage of students who are specially  gifted in the field.” Arnold Arons (1997)

Just as you make sure your socks are on before your shoes, cells make sure that their chromosomes are properly aligned before they divide. However, every time a cell divides, it runs the risk of generating cells with too few or too many chromosomes. These mistakes can cause Down Syndrome and play a role in the growth of cancers. In his Science Center Lecture Series presentation, professor Andrew Murray looks at a mysterious cellular process that may provide clues to understanding chromosomal abnormalities such as the higher incidence of children with Down Syndrome born to older women.

The traditional lecture format is the not the best method for teaching science. Again to draw an analogy with physical education, lectures are of limited use when the subject being taught is an activity.

The competitive model for science education, and for education in general, is poor training for how work is actually accomplished. Corporations compete, athletes compete, politicians compete, but the vast majority of working people have to cooperate if they want to get anything done.

Competitive grading systems discourage recreational interest. This is true in school athletic programs and it is also true for science classes. Just as students who get picked last for sports teams conclude athletics is not for them, students who fail to make the cut in science classes, conclude that they lack the "science gene," and should not even try to understand the subject.