On Pedagogy
One of the things that I'd like to be able to do better as a teacher is leading large group discussions because students learn more when they discover something for themselves than if I simply tell them.
But it is well-known amongst the faculty at SLAC that in large groups students. never. speak. up.
So, you can imagine how frustrating (and quiet) a large group discussion can be.
Monday's group discussion in Studying the Best Man Ever (henceforth, SBME) was excruciating. I had distributed the discussion questions ahead of time and had them submit their written responses at the end of class. The class discussion itself was dominated by the two class extroverts, while the others offered one-sentence responses if asked directly. But I found the written responses to be full of good questions and valuable insights.
So, I was determined to try discussion again today.
I insisted that everyone sit in a circle.
Then I started with a clip from Life of Brian so that the students would laugh together.
And I distributed a slip of paper with a text from the Good Book to each student. They were responsible for reading that text aloud in class and answering two questions about that text.
The discussion went more smoothly and was more evenly distributed today (I finally know what the voices of two of my students sound like).
Here's hoping that this is the beginning of a beautiful class dynamic...
2 comments:
Ever done the "1-minute" or "5-minute" write? It's a technique to help students to think on paper what they had already learned.
You can use it before a topic is introduced (get them to write down what they might think about the topic); after a topic has been lectured (to help them process the content); after reading a short article (as you did); and before small/large group discussions.
You can also get them to hand in those 1- 5- minute writes in with their names on them, and give them credit for their participation. I've included these short-writes as a way to gauge how well they are learning -- a type of "formative assessment", and also get them to hand them in each class as a way to encourage participation.
Usually, it's best to be very liberal with the marking (if you choose to mark) -- handing in all the writes might add up to an easy 5% of overall grade for the semester of participation, for example.
And if you set it up at the beginning of a course, they get used to it very quickly.
I was taught this technique in my pedagogy class. It's great!
Good job on the creativity!
I hadn't realized that this could be used as a semester-long pedagogical technique.
I will very likely adopt it for my 200-level course, but I think that it would be less effective in my 100-level course.
Thanks for the tip, LD!!
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