- Sep 2015
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utexas.instructure.com utexas.instructure.com
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his exercise develops critical skills and generates a good deal of friendly rivalry among groups. The instructions to each group are to decide upon three statements known to be true about some particular issue. "It is true about slavery that..." "We have agreed that it is true about the welfare system that..." "It is true about international politics in the l950s that..." "We know it to be true about the theory of relativity that...", and so on. I have found this strategy useful in introducing a new topic, slavery, for example, where students may think they already know a great deal but the veracity of their assumptions demands examination. The complexity and ambiguity of knowledge is clearly revealed as students present their truth statements and other students raise questions about or refute them. The purpose of the exercise is to develop some true statements, perhaps, but mostly to generate a list of questions and of issues demanding further study. This provides an agenda for the unit. Sending students to the library is the usual next step, and they are quite charged up for research after the process of trying to generate truth statements.
"Truth statements" are what we call in rhetoric "common places." Common places are great to springboard a discussion because they give us common ground to start from while questioning the notion of common ground from the start. Think of common places as things we might be inclined to accept without explanation (e.g. "common sense," etc.)
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Each group reports orally, with the teacher recording results (if appropriate) on the board
This text is pretty old-school. There are lots of ways beyond the board that we can record student input. We will talk about some of these in class--do you use any already?
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The students are asked to pair off and decide together what they think is the primary value of the particular text for the day, and how their consideration of it meshes with course goals
I call this "think, pair, share" and my students become accustomed to it as a core part of class discussion very early on in coursework.
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A student's self-image is always affected by his or her participation in discussions: feedback, therefore, is crucial for self-esteem.
So, too, is a student's willingness to participate often rooted in their self-esteem.
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What are some commonly held ideas (or possibly misconceptions) about this topic that students might be familiar with or might espouse?
John Oliver commonly begins his long monologue on Last Week Tonight by introducing the commonly-held belief about a topic before discrediting that belief. This can be a highly successful strategy, but beware of alienating your students by discrediting their prior knowledge (i.e. making your students your strawman).
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Because you will have a diverse body of students with different academic and personal experiences, they may already be familiar with the topic. That is why you might start with a question or activity to gauge students’ knowledge of the subject or possibly, their preconceived notions about it. For example, you can take a simple poll
This is especially important in your first few sessions as you get to know the composition of your discussion sections.
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se questions to change the tempo or the direction of the discussion
worth their weight in gold
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In an effort to elicit a response, instructors sometimes attempt to clarify a question by rephrasing it. But often the new wording poses an entirely new question, which sends students off in another direction
so real
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Evaluation (using criteria to arrive at a reasoned judgment of the value of something): "To what extent does the proposed package of tax increases resolve the budget deficit?" "If cocaine were legalized, what would be the implications for public health services?"
These kinds of questions are very important to my specialization (rhetoric) but hardly ever utilized in my discipline at large (literature). What is your discipline's relationship to evaluative questions?
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Take a few minutes after each class session to note which questions generated the most lively exchanges
If you teach the same class again, your informal reflections will save you a ton of prep time.
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to the class as a whole, to pairs of students, to small groups. Create questions designed to prompt brainstorming, consensus building, or debate.
Asking questions to pairs and having them share their findings with the class, for instance, often helps a quiet class begin talking.
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