SECTIONS AND LABS Facilitating Discussions Additional Strategies

Alternatives to traditional lecture and discussion formats encourage participation and active learning among students of widely different backgrounds or learning styles. They can also simply be more fun, for you and for your students! To use these techniques effectively, however, be sure to think through the learning goals you want your students to meet, and pick a goal-appropriate activity. Be sure to plan the logistics of the activity in advance. What steps will the students need to take? How much time will they need to complete each part of the activity? How will you “wrap up” the activity?

1) Peer Teaching & Learning

Purpose:
To involve students more actively in their own learning. To teach students to learn from each other as well as from the “teacher.” To encourage cooperation and collaboration in learning rather than competition.

Description:
These learning goals depend upon maximizing student interaction, so the starting point should be breaking the class up into pairs or small groups. You will probably want to balance the groups so that they will be able to work well together and collectively have the necessary skills to accomplish their projects. This may require some teacher intervention to break up cliques and other pre-formed social groupings. Each group may be assigned a topic, or they may be allowed to develop their own projects. Within groups, all the students may work together without specialization, or work can be divided so that each member has specific tasks. Ongoing progress reports may be used to help students stay on schedule and to ensure that work is divided fairly.

Examples:
In a survey course on world cultures, students were divided into groups of five. Each group was assigned a particular civilization and told to analyze it according to five variables: political institutions, economic factors, religious institutions, social structures, and artistic traditions. Within each group, work was divided so that each person specialized in one of the five areas. All the students worked together to create the final report.

In a class on the novel, the class was divided into eight groups, in which they would remain all semester. Each group was assigned responsibility for a particular aspect of novels. One group was to become experts on plots, one on characterization, one on scene and setting, one on the use of rhetorical figures, and so on. There was no specialization within groups. Each group was assigned to meet once per week to discuss the aspects of that week’s reading which fell into its area of expertise. Each week in class, one member of each group had to report on their group’s discussion. The speaking duties rotated within each group.

In a chemistry lab section, the instructor prepared by anticipating questions likely to be asked during the upcoming lab. (Lab prep meetings and experienced GSIs can help with this.) During the lab the first person to ask a question was given a detailed answer and designated the expert for that topic during the remainder of the lab. Students who asked the same question later were then referred to the “expert” for the answer.

In a biology discussion section, students were assigned to small groups to answer questions generated by the GSI. The questions required one- to two-page answers, and each group of two to three students worked on one question together outside of class. The answers were presented to the rest of the section orally, using handouts and the chalkboard. In addition, the full written answers provided by the group were copied and distributed to all the students. Since they knew that they would get one or two of these questions (either verbatim or in a slightly modified form) on the midterm or final exam, the students had an incentive for doing a thorough job.

2) Class Debate

Purpose:
To increase students’ public speaking and presentation skills, including the ability to think quickly on one’s feet. To develop students’ research skills and give them a chance to become experts on a particular subject. To encourage students to organize their thoughts in a critical or argumentative way that takes the complexity of issues and the existence of alternative and opposed views into account.

Description:
This technique may be used with either large or small groups. In either case, it is often best to begin with a brief class discussion of the issues involved. This provides a context for the debate, a sense of the sub-issues involved, and a gauge of class feelings on the issues. At this time the instructor should also make clear the rules of the debate, including time allotted to each side and rules for speaking. (Formats and rules for several kinds of debates can be found online.) If small groups are being used, the class should be divided into these groups and the groups should be given time to choose their topics and resolution. (Debates are often won or lost in the wording of the resolution, so it is important that the students have some leeway in deciding upon this wording.) After the sides and resolution are decided upon, the students will need time to prepare their arguments and tactics. If the class is to perform the debate as a whole, the instructor usually serves as moderator. In this case also, the two sides should be given some time to develop their positions and their strategies of argument before the debate begins. In either case, students may be instructed to argue for their own beliefs or against them depending upon the teacher’s objectives. Likewise, the teacher may choose to have students argue first an affirmative position and then a negative one. Some instructors prefer to summarize the debate at the end; this can clarify the information presented and orient students as to what was to be derived from the exercise. Other instructors prefer to refrain from this sort of analysis, thereby preserving the variety of opinions and perspectives that were formed over the course of the debate.

Examples:
In an American Political History course, the class was discussing the relative merits of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. As the discussion began to polarize and to heat up, the course instructor decided to formalize the process in a debate. She divided the class roughly in half according to their stances on the issue. The students on one side of the issue sat together on one side of the room and the other students sat on the other side. The students were asked to argue the position opposed to their own beliefs because the instructor wanted them to become more familiar with the other side’s arguments. They were given one and a half class periods to work together on their strategies and arguments, and the debate lasted one class period. The debate took place under a simplified version of Robert’s Rules of Order with the teacher serving as the chair.

Similarly, in a statistics course, the instructor encouraged class debate on competing methods of solving certain kinds of problems. The class was allowed to polarize and was then formally separated to give the students time to work together to prepare their arguments. Then, they were brought together in a semiformal debate to argue which method was better.

In a course on oral argumentation, students were routinely assigned two debates. In the first debate they debated one on one; in the second they debated two on two. They were allowed to choose their own topics and resolutions, both of which had to be approved by the instructor. Topics and resolutions were decided on in class, but all other work was done outside of class. Students were given two weeks after choosing their resolutions before the debate began. If a student debated the affirmative side of the issue in the first debate, he or she was required take the negative side the next time to get an understanding of the different strategies and tactics on the other side.

3) Role-Playing

Purpose:
To make learning more active. To include affective learning as well as cognitive understanding. To increase student awareness of the interconnectedness of knowledge and the subtle complexities of situations. To expand personal experience by simulating a situation.

Description:
Role-plays may be done as a whole class or in small groups. The instructor begins by describing a context and a situation within that context. Students are either given roles or allowed to choose them. Students are given some time to prepare, and then they enter their roles and act out the situation. Some instructors add student observers to their situations. These observers do not act out a role in the situation, but they observe and analyze the performances of the actors and provide feedback both to the actors and to the instructor and class. Role plays may be used even in fields which do not involve human beings directly: e.g., students may play the roles of cells, molecules, economic forces, and abstract philosophies in addition to historical figures, characters in a novel, etc.

Examples:
In an introductory biology class, the instructor used role-plays to help students more actively grasp the formation of protein chains. The class was divided into groups and each group was assigned to play the role of a particular type of atom. Each member of the group would be an atom of that type. They were to study the behavior of these atoms and then act them out in class. Once the role-play began, some atoms would bond with others at particular angles to form simple molecules. Other atoms would repel each other and make certain formations difficult to achieve. Simple molecules would form into larger ones, and eventually protein chains would evolve. In a second example, a small ball becomes an electron. The electron is passed from one student to another to demonstrate electron transfer and oxidized/reduced states. Later in the course the students can name the components of an electron transport chain that they build by passing the electron.

In a Shakespeare course, students studied Shakespeare’s plays intensively for a few weeks. Then they chose scenes and roles from a set of scenes selected by the instructor. They analyzed their chosen characters, then acted out the scene for the class. Finally, they wrote a short essay explaining the motivation they ascribed to their characters.

4) Case Studies

Purpose:
To enliven the material by making it concrete and “real.” Encourages students to integrate theory with practice. Facilitates intuitive and integrated understanding of complex, interconnected issues.

Description:
Students are given specific cases to study that illustrate general principles being studied in the course. Students may be asked to write an analysis of the case, to report on it orally, or to be prepared for detailed questions from the instructor.

Examples:
In a physics methodology class, students were given unsigned research reports by famous physicists. They were divided into groups and asked to critique the research methods used in the cases they had been given. Each group presents its findings orally in class. Only at the end of the exercise did the students learn the names of the researchers.
In a political science class, after a unit in which the lecturer presented information on ruling styles, the class was given biographies of a number of rulers. The class was divided into groups and each group was assigned a biography. Each group was to determine what kind of ruling style the leader used and whether or not it was an effective style of leadership according to the criteria laid out in lecture.

5) Creative Scenarios and Simulations

Purposes:
To encourage students to extrapolate beyond the information they receive in class. To stimulate creative and original thinking by forcing students to look at their knowledge from a new perspective. To foster a greater awareness of the interdependence of theories and facts. To make students more active in their learning and to increase their research skills.

Description:
Creative scenarios and simulations are connected by the fact that they both depend on counter-factual assumptions. In addition, both often combine several aspects of role-playing and case studies. In creative scenarios, students are familiarized with a particular configuration of knowledge and reality. The instructor then specifies a hypothetical change to this configuration and asks the students to discuss the effects of this change on a specific area of interest. In simulations, students are put in situations which are set up to be analogous to “real” situations of interest to the course. Students are then asked to act out the simulation as if it were the real thing.

Examples:
Creative Scenario: In a public health class on hospitals, the class studied the various factors influencing the economics of their operation. The class was then asked to work out what the effects would be on those economics if a cheap vaccination against AIDS were developed tomorrow.

Creative Scenario: Students in a geography class were studying the impact of nuclear radiation on ecosystems. They were asked to predict what the effects would have been had Chernobyl’s reactor melted down into the ground water underneath the reactor core.

Simulation: Students in a business class were studying entrepreneurship. As their final project for the semester, they were asked to simulate how they would go about starting their own company. Students were put into groups and told that they had a set amount of venture capital with which to work. They then took whatever steps they thought wisest to establish their own company and turn it into a profit-making entity. They had to develop a comprehensive plan which included what product they would manufacture, who would manufacture it, how much it would cost, how they would finance production, how they would hire personnel, how they would market their product, and how they would manage their company. In one class, the professor arranged with a private venture capital company to actually provide funding in the specified amount to the group that came up with the best plan.

Simulation: Students in an upper division engineering class were asked to write up their final projects as if they were being submitted to a journal for publication in order to practice professional writing within the discipline. They were allowed to choose which journal they would like to submit their results to, then they had to study that journal to discover what kinds of articles it accepted, and what the rules concerning format and submissions were. Finally, they wrote their article following the standards they themselves had discovered.

Simulation: In a math course, the students often played Math Jeopardy in lieu of a quiz. The instructor provided a list of three math topics such as Wacky Integrals, Simple Proofs, and Limits, as well as one non-math topic such as Bay Area Trivia or Famous Dead Rock Stars. Math questions were assigned dollar values of $10, $25, $50, or $100, while the non-math questions were worth $1, $5, $10, or $15. Students would take turns picking questions, then everyone would be given five minutes or so to write down an answer. The game would end after ten questions were picked and answered. The instructor found this game helpful not only as a fun learning tool for the students, but as an informational device for his teaching. If all of one topic disappeared quickly, then he was confident that the students understood that subject. If another topic remained virtually untouched, then he knew what he needed to discuss in the next section.

Simulation: In an upper division biology class, students were assigned journal articles to read either individually or in small groups. They were then asked to design the next step of experiments that would further this research topic and present their work in the form of a mini-grant proposal.