True story. I live in the US. A [famous] colleague of mine was invited to give a lecture at a major German university in front of a professor's class. At the end of his lecture, the professor picked a random student out of the class, and the student came down and gave a perfect 1-minute summary of the lecture.
My colleague asked how the students could be so disciplined. The professor said it was simple: they knew he would pick one at random, so they all had pre-prepared summaries of the lecture based on studying my colleague's submitted lecture notes the day before.
I wouldn’t want to participate in a course like this. I’d say it’s the lecturer’s job to explain a topic well enough so that the students can summarize it.
If students have to memorize a summary before the lecture then something feels wrong. Good for the lecturer, I guess.
The purpose of great lectures isn't to regurgitate what is readily available in the literature or slides but to give students an opportunity to Q&A the parts which they don't understand.
Exactly - many talks and lectures would be much better if the audience reviewed the material beforehand and didn't need to spend most of the time having powerpoint slides read to them.
My colleague asked how the students could be so disciplined. The professor said it was simple: they knew he would pick one at random, so they all had pre-prepared summaries of the lecture based on studying my colleague's submitted lecture notes the day before.