Use use cases

Attended CTL's workshop on using use cases in class on Friday. Use cases as discussed appear as a study of an existing piece of literature, and shift the stress from the instructor to the student in terms of who does the "discovery".

I do not know how recent is this trend, but it appears that lectures are considered now a "bad" form of learning, because, the assumption is made, that the lectures are not as conductive to learning as other, more hands-on activities. I am certain that there is literature with some empirical studies on the topic.

Interestingly enough, this is not how I learned when I was a student. For me the quintessential "learning" moment was when I took notes: i.e., when information filtered through my brain and onto the paper. Less so in grad school, perhaps - there "learning" was all over the map, from lectures to programming projects. But certainly in all my undergraduate classes - in order to understand something, I needed to hear this spoken by someone else (instructor), and then, from his/her words, to comprehend it and write it down.

Of course, I cannot claim that how I learn is indicative of how others do it...