Slide design

[dsimcha]

== Quote from BCS (ao at pathlink.com)'s article
> Reply to Sean,
> > Some professors seem to think that lecturing about material that isn't
> > presented anywhere else will force students to attend class.  But in
> > my experience it also creates a class that takes notes furiously
> > rather than engaging the material and asking questions.  Overall, I
> > think it's a counterproductive strategy.
> At the other end, if the professor *only* lectures on what's in the book,
> what are they being paid for? Just talking? Better would be for the professor
> to lecture on application, the what/why (and not the how), how ideas are
> related, anecdotes and the like.

Exactly my feelings.  Reading the book at one's own pace is a good way to get all
the nitty-gritty technical details down.  What lecture should be for is
understanding the stuff at a higher level.  This includes asking questions,
discussions, broad overviews to help students see the forest instead of just the
trees, etc.  I tend to feel that huge lecture hall lectures, were any
interactiveness is impractical, are largely a waste of time unless the lecturer is
exceptionally engaging and/or you have enough background in the topic already that
you're mostly interested in understanding another point of view on the subject
rather than learning it for the first time.