Why people don’t like TEAL

I’ve noticed that a most people aren’t capable of estimating the inherent difficulty of a given task/activity, instead relying on the frequency of context switching. Context switching is a concept from computer science, where it refers “the process of storing and restoring the state (context) of a process or thread so that execution can be resumed from the same point at a later time” (Wikipedia). In psychology there’s a similar concept called task switching, which refers to a person switching focus from one task to another.

Having to switch back and forth between modes of thinking is hard. If you are working on an algorithms problem set, then realize that you have an 8-page paper due the next day, it’s really hard to drag your mind out of logical, mathematical mode into humanist, causes-of-the-Seven-Years-War mode. Trust me, I know. And people don’t generally like things that are hard.

This helps explain why so many MIT students dislike the TEAL (technology-enabled active learning) class format. TEAL has three (3) mandatory class sessions a week, where the in-class exercises and clicker questions require focusing on learning physics (and by extension, switching into physics mode). There is also a problem set every week, and a reading question that you answer and submit before every class. This adds up to seven (7) occasions per week where a typical student must stop their train of thought (presumably relating to Quora or Reddit) and devote those resources towards physics.

Compare this with a typical class lecture-pset class that doesn’t have interactivity or reading questions. I’d argue that this requires one (1) context switch per week, which is done when settling in to knock out the pset. Lectures only require passive attention, and don’t require much RAM.

This theory is also corroborated by the new MITx integration into 8.02. The course instructors decided to split up the online portion of the pset into two halves. The set was the same length as before, just split into two portions. Yet students complained about having twice as much homework for 8.02 as their other classes despite the fact that the same pset was percieved to be of normal length by previous years’ students.

It’s like the experiment where you offer a small child the option of two dimes or one quarter. They always take the dimes because there’s two of them, so obviously they’re worth more.

We’re a bit harder to fool. But not much.