I’ve run into Palmer’s issue a few times – I agree with your negative results argument as well. If I go into a social science study looking for correlations between two things, and I go in with the presumption that correlation exists, and yet find that it does not, that may be just as significant and deserving of attention/publication. No matter how objective publication or conference reviewers pretend or claim to be, they are judging our work as influenced by their own knowledge, experiences, areas of interest, influences, biases. Inescapable, frustrating.

I think it’s interesting how you mention the devaluation of liberal arts in favor of math and hard science is systemic. My public school experience wasn’t quite as divisive, as we were required to take courses in a variety of STEM subjects as well as the arts, but there was certainly a separation between the “normal” students and those that showed proclivity for STEM. Many of them were pulled out of regular classes and cordoned off in a special “governor’s school” that specialized in prepping high school students for entry into universities with strong STEM programs. The rest of us were pretty much left to fend for ourselves.

I have recently seen (maybe it was a meme or something, I’m too distracted by this shiny blog-commentinc-laptop-device to remember) a hanging cloth – blanket or sheet – with pockets sewn into it. Each student had a name on a pocket, and was instructed to put their phones in that pocket at the beginning of each class. The instructor took role every day, and did so by checking the phone blanket pockets. If you were in class but did not surrender your phone, you were marked absent. Thought it was a pretty cool idea.
Although in order for it to work each student would have to have a phone – not an unreasonable assumption these days, but there are exceptions. ..

I have a very love/hate relationship with technology, especially in the classroom. On one hand, I think it’s useful, can be cool, and that usefulness/coolness may prompt a student to complete a task or challenge or objective that student may otherwise not do. On the other it’s one big, connected distraction filled with easily accessible, completely irrelevant … stuff (I can’t even call it “information” … when class participation is replaced with overt cellphone candy crush it’s kind of hard to). I want to disallow irrelevant tech, or limit tech to class or course-related activities, but at this point that’s pretty unrealistic. I suppose it’s adapt or die.

I do like the curiosity-as-virtue concept. It is certainly something that resonates within education – I also like how it focuses the desire to learn on the shoulders of the student. It is the student’s curiosity that drives it to seek out knowledge, and it is the instructor’s job to recognize that curiosity, feed it, and point it in the direction in which it is most likely to achieve satisfaction.

I once gave a series of in-class examples of oral citations given in context of an academic public speech using nothing but Ghostbusters references.
… no one got it.

Striking a balance between who you are socially and who you are professionally is important, in any profession. My first attempt at teaching in a classroom I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to present myself as authoritative, credible – that was more about my own inexperience than any teaching philosophy (which I knew nothing about). It was so much better for myself and for my students when I got over that. If nothing else, I’m having more fun with it. And that’s something.

Knowing your audience is one of the key points we hit on each semester in public speaking. While you can anticipate certain aspects of your classroom, and certain aspects will remain consistent from semester to semester, no audience is going to be exactly the same. Adaptability, as only a well-trained, experienced speaker/educator/lecturer can do, is key for engagement.

“Boring” lectures – copious amounts of material – if a student is bored in a class, does not find the material particularly interesting or useful, it is entirely possible that student is in the wrong class, the wrong major. Perhaps a student that finds mathematics uninteresting and dull should not be taking engineering courses. Perhaps it’s not a matter of lecturers not engaging students on an individual level, but a matter of a student not feeling engaged with the lectures because that individual has chosen its classes poorly.

I find lectures useful, but often only if the deliverer of said lecture is, as you say, engaging. Much of what we impart to our students in public speaking is animation – intensity, variety, etc. I’ve had both – passionate lecturers that really enjoyed the material, enjoyed engaging the students with questions and discussion, and the ones that are paying a mortgage. So much has been said in this class about doing away with lectures and coming up with new and exciting, different ways of handling the classroom. This is a good thing, change and evolution in education is necessary. What worked for the last generation may not be the most effective way to deliver material to this generation. Adding a little style to a lecture may enhance the experience for the student. Baby/bathwater adage, etc.