Bernie Quotes from the Boston Globe on student engagment in the classroom:Bernard J. Morzuch, a UMass Amherst professor of resource economics, studied the faces of his students this summer, often toggling between the photos and the evening's baseball scores. If he could summon their names after being immersed in box scores, he had them down.
"That was the acid test," he said.
For years, Morzuch learned his students' names as the semester went along. This year, he already has most of them down.
Morzuch said he stunned some of the 350 students in his introductory statistics course last spring by calling on them. He called only on students whose names he knew, of course, but students didn't know that.
"You call two or three by their first name, they assume you've memorized the whole class," he said with a chuckle.
And the occasional cold call transforms the classroom dynamic, professors say. Students sit up straighter and may even forgo their habitual Web browsing in class if there's a chance they'll suddenly be called on by name and thrust into the spotlight.
"I want students to get over the mentality that there is safety in numbers," Morzuch said.
2 comments:
Exccuuuuuuuuuuussaaaaa me?!?! What the heck is on his head? Did he pick that up on the side of the road?!
Odds are probably. Along with all of the college kids beer can cast-offs he collects when he runs. I don't know what's worse: the hat with plastic flowers, the grey shorts he always wears that are on permanent loan from the Boyden Gym, or the freaking boots.
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