Motivation
Why do all the teachers think that the students are motivated with self-curiosity and thirst for knowledge? I mentioned already our " silent seminars" and I noticed a lot of similar situations in Vaasa. In fact, in my opinion, we are as Pablov's dogs always a little hungry, sleepy and react only on known stimuli. Since long time I questioned myself if the teacher promised something to students: points, free of assignments, tickets to cinema finally, it would increase student activity and interest or not. Yesterday I saw a perfect realization of my thoughts.
It was a guest lecture and the lecturer was a business-practitioner. Definitely it gave him a clue that to make the lecture interactive the student should be somehow motivated. He offered movie tickets to them who would ask good questions.
Result? He couldn't reach the end of presentation because he answered our questions... they were different: short and long, stupid and interesting, finally non-understandable at all :-) But the lecture differed considerably from any others where "Please, do not hesitate to ask questions" is just a formality.
It was a guest lecture and the lecturer was a business-practitioner. Definitely it gave him a clue that to make the lecture interactive the student should be somehow motivated. He offered movie tickets to them who would ask good questions.
Result? He couldn't reach the end of presentation because he answered our questions... they were different: short and long, stupid and interesting, finally non-understandable at all :-) But the lecture differed considerably from any others where "Please, do not hesitate to ask questions" is just a formality.