I love that Paul Cottle is making friends in some great places, including the media. See Online-U doesn’t fit with state’s math, science goal,
Paul Cottle’s physics classes at Florida State University include just the type of student the state wants to produce more of: high-level, science-focused scholars capable of competing for jobs on the world’s stage.
The way Cottle teaches them is no accident.
“Right now, the very best classroom environment for physics is one in which you have people working together in groups on physical experiments, things they’ve got in their hands,” he said. “We do very, very little lecturing, maybe five minutes of lecturing at the beginning of a three-hour period.”
It’s intense, hands-on and face-to-face. And it’s the exact opposite of Florida leaders’ push to figure out a way to make the state the latest competitor in the e-degree business.
I talked a bit about virtual education here. It has its place, but it’s not “the answer” by any stretch of the imagination. In my humble opinion, of course.
Brandon – I’m afraid that what I’m doing doesn’t make friends 😉 But in a Sentinel follow-up Beth Kassab reporter that SUS Chancellor Frank Brogan talked with her and assured her that he gets it – that at present it doesn’t make sense to try to teach science online. So that’s progress.