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Confessions of a Converted Lecturer: Eric Mazur

UMBCtube · lecture · Watch on YouTube

Education & learningUniversity lectures & courses

What it is

Harvard physicist Eric Mazur explains how he realized his students were memorizing rather than understanding, and how he changed his teaching. He presents peer instruction and data showing improved student performance.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Repeatedly recommended in education threads as the definitive talk on why lectures fail and what works better.

  • 9 people recommended it
  • 9 different months
  • 5 strong recommendations
  • first 2009, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “this really fantastic talk from Eric Mazur”

    Mazur shows students lacked conceptual understanding and how peer discussion fixed it.

    mquander, 2009-12 · Strong recommendation · in “Taking account of misconceptions; avoiding rote learning (MIT OCW video)”

  2. “Great video on how a pretty good teacher (as conventionally measured) learned how to really teach.”

    A good teacher learns how to really teach.

    MaysonL, 2010-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Freakonomics: Quantifying Teacher Effectiveness?”

  3. “This lecture, is long but well worth watching.”

    Evidence that students memorize steps for word problems without understanding.

    yequalsx, 2010-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Dan Meyer dissects the flaws of math textbooks (video)”

  4. “there's a really great talk by Eric Mazur, Physics professor at Harvard about peer instruction”

    Mazur explains why and how he developed peer instruction, with data.

    synotic, 2015-12 · Strong recommendation · in “A better way to teach technical skills to a group”

  5. “I can say that the best two lecture were Eric Mazur's Confessions of a Converted Lecturer”

    Mazur's lecture on converting from traditional lecturing to better teaching.

    vanderZwan, 2017-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Universities are broke – let’s cut the pointless admin and get back to teaching”

  6. “Eric Mazur's Peer learning process kind of highlights the problem and a solution for the same.”

    Mazur's peer learning process: ask questions exposing gaps, let students debate.

    bhattisatish, 2014-02 · Recommendation · in “Khan Academy: The Illusion of Understanding”

  7. “A good story/video about the development of his peer-to-peer, active learning methods”

    Story on development of Mazur's peer-to-peer active learning methods.

    2020-3030, 2017-11 · Recommendation · in “Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)”

  8. “This video is a bit long, but goes into details of his scientific approach to measuring results”

    Mazur's scientific approach to measuring learning results.

    dorfsmay, 2018-04 · Recommendation · in “The Case Against Lectures”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: eric mazur, peer instruction, physics education, active learning, lectures

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