This is great; a place to share teaching ideas. I hope you all share what works and what doesn't.
I've moved to a "democratic model" of teaching in which students and I plan a course together; they choose and assign readings in addition to my assignments; we negotiate a grading proportion. It is a combination of sstudent-led discussions (mostly) and lectures by me. I do add a couple of requirements that might not be their choice: community service and a research paper.
In the three classes so far, this approach has greatly improved the quality of papers and discussions and generated considerable student interest. There are some bumps - a developing schedule (students shape it for the most part) and possible negative evals by those who may prefer just lectures. But the pedagocial gains are, I think, worth the risks. Students feel a good deal of ownership of the class.
Would welcome critiques, suggestions, similar (or contrasting) experiences.
Bob Press
4 comments:
I am trying a mini-version of this idea in one of my classes. Students are responsible for choosing and planning two class sessions. I hope it works. I am not sure--in a history class--if students have the background to do this, but I love the idea of students taking responsibilty for their education. Hopefully it will instill a life-long interest in self education. Post more when I know more.
You might want to read this: http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa07/le_fa07_myview.cfm
A friend of mine just got back her evaluations from the fall, and she had given her students some measure of freedom on course assignments; they complained about it and gave her low evaluations. I couldn't believe it - I had always imagined students wanted more autonomy. However, in preparing my grad class this week (Second Language Acquisition, textbook is by H.D. Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching), I learned more about autonomy and how we have to sometimes train students as to why it would be a good idea to be a more autonomous learner, and what exactly we expect from them. The book also cited research stating that the whole concept of autonomy may not be universal and that there may be a sort of cultural imperialism in expecting that all cultures value this quality. I thought this was so interesting! It's funny how you come across certain things at certain times and they tie in. :)
Perhaps the use of democratic decision making works better for some teaching styles than for others. When I tried to offer some democratic decisions to students, I found myself in the role of parliamentarian--trying to keep the majority-rule discussion within rules of order. This felt uncomfortable to me because I thought that too much classtime was being lost in bringing the students to a productive decision. I would not try such an experiment again without completely retooling my approach.
Rather than opening classroom decisions to group consideration, I have found other, more subtle, ways to encourage personal responsibility from my students and to appreciate their individual contributions to the class. I am still learning how best to pursue these worthy goals, but the opening of class policy or schedule decisions to democratic process does not match my teaching style very well.
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