Query-directed Lecturing as a Means of Increasing Teaching Productivity in Science Education

(¿UERY-DIRECTED LECTURING AS A MEANS OF INCREASING TEACHING PRODUCTIVITY IN SCIENCE EDUCATION DON L. JEWETT, MD., DfHIL* Note to Reader: The following article is written in a multilevel format, so that the relative importance of the ideas presented is readily apparent. The ideas most basic to the argument are carried to the left-hand margin and have three vertical lines at the margin. Explanations and examples of the basic ideas and their further elaboration are in a second level, which is indented seven spaces and has two vertical lines to the left. Parenthetical comments, material for footnotes, and other material of lesser importance are included in the third level, which is indented fourteen spaces and has one vertical line at the left. Some of the ways that this format can be read are shown in figure 1. Most readers will probably find the multilevel format easiest initially if they first briefly skim the main arguments SKIMMING FOREXPLANATION OFTOTAL ARTICLE, HIGH POINTSMAIN POINTSALL LEVELS I 2 ^2^2^»3/3^3 t V 1X ,2j:2 X 1X ^2^2, 3 Fig. 1.—Some of the different reading sequences that can be utilized in reading this multilevel article. The numbers represent paragraphs and indicate the various levels. * Assistant professor of physiology and neurological surgery, University of California, San Francisco, California 94122. I thank Dr. W. F. Ganong for moral and financial support and the editor of this journal for being willing to tolerate the unusual format of this article. 460 I Don L. Jewett · Query-directed Lecturing of the article (reading at the left-hand margin, marked with three vertical lines). The advantages of this format are discussed in the preceding article [I]. Introduction The inexorable increases in the costs of education that we witness presently are inevitable in the future, particularly those that are "caused" by overall increases in the productivity of society . In such circumstances, increases in teaching productivity are not only desirable but necessary. "Teaching" productivity is here used to mean the number of students taught per unit faculty time [I]. The mechanism by which overall productivity of society influences apparent costs of education can be perceived by considering the following example: Imagine a society in which all goods and services are exchanged by barter only. Imagine further that 90 percent of the population within a relatively short time increases its productivity 100-fold (by mechanization, automation, etc.) while the remaining 10 percent of the population is unable , for technological reasons, to increase its productivity. Call members of the first, Increased Productivity group "IPs" and members of the latter, Constant Productivity group "CPs". If the CPs are to share in the overall increased productivity of the society, they must barter their output for more goods and services from the IPs than they did previously . To the members of the society, the "cost" of the goods and services of the CPs will have appeared to increase. If a money system were used and constant prices assumed, then the monetary cost of the CPs output would rise as the general overall productivity of the society increased. Since increased productivity is primarily in material goods, in such a situation the consumer choice Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Spring ¡972 | 461 finally becomes extreme between the material goods of the IPs and the services of the CPs. To illustrate this choice, consider the question of how much of a plumber's time could be purchased for the same cost as that of a table radio thirty years ago in contrast with the situation today. In terms of material objects , the "cost" of the plumber has "risen" about twenty-five-fold, because the cost of the radio (in terms of human time) has decreased amazingly. State of California legislative analyst A. Alan Post has described the situation, as it relates to education and government today in a speech to the Society for College and University Planning (sixth annual conference, San Francisco, August 9, 1971) in the following way: "The principal commodity bought by state and local governments is personal services , paid for at salary levels which are generally competitive with and largely determined by goods producing industries. These salary increases won by...