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Just yesterday I sat in on a TEAL-based 8.02 lecture, and it was fantastic. Integration of the classroom technology with presentation and student participation was superb. More of this, please! http://web.mit.edu/edtech/casestudies/teal.html

Education & Facilities, Educational experiences, Physical spaces

Comments

TEAL not universally loved

As a graduate of 2012, I can say the majority of my friends/peers hated TEAL. MIT keeps saying this is the great new thing, but it felt like high school all over again. I found standards were set very low in the class, and I switched to the advanced physics major version of 8.02 to avoid this class second semester. An 80 person classroom where they were trying to give us "one-on-one" attention. Furthermore, it was common for students to cheat on attendance by having friends bring in their clickers or copy their friends answers to mastering physics. How is that learning? Maybe it has changed since I took it in 2008, but I would rather have online education than that class.

Fixable?

Can those issues be fixed? For example, I don't think attendance should be required, therefore removing the motivation to smuggle clickers. Also, I wasn't promoting (or even aware of) the "one-on-one" attention angle on TEAL. My perspective is that the lecture format is richer and more interactive than a traditional big lecture hall. Setting standards at the right level is a requirement for any class.