"When running seminar or discussion classes for undergraduates,
the major issue instructors face is unbalanced participation, with
some students dominating the discussion while others remain silent.
While there are ways to force more widespread participation (such
as calling upon people, basing grades on participation, using tokens,
allowing people to speak only a limited number of times, etc.),
all these techniques involve coercion to a greater or lesser degree.
They run counter to the basic idea of the seminar/discussion as
a continuing conversation, similar to the ones that one might have
with friends and neighbors. One cannot imagine using coercion there."
Tomorrow's Professor Msg.#558 TALKERS AND LISTENERS
Folks:
The posting below looks at how to increase seminar participation
among all students. It is by Mano Singham, Case Western Reserve
University, and is number 22 in a series of selected excerpts from
the National Teaching and Learning Forum newsletter reproduced here
as part of our "Shared Mission Partnership." NT&LF
has a wealth of information on all aspects of teaching and learning.
If you are not already a subscriber, you can check it out at [http://www.ntlf.com/]
The on-line edition of the Forum--like the printed version - offers
subscribers insight from colleagues eager to share new ways of helping
students reach the highest levels of learning. National Teaching
and Learning Forum Newsletter, Volume 13, Number 2, © Copyright
1996-2004. Published by James Rhem & Associates, Inc. (ISSN
1057-2880) All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Community-Based Research and Higher Education
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
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TALKERS AND LISTENERS
When running seminar or discussion classes for undergraduates,
the major issue instructors face is unbalanced participation, with
some students dominating the discussion while others remain silent.
While there are ways to force more widespread participation (such
as calling upon people, basing grades on participation, using tokens,
allowing people to speak only a limited number of times, etc.),
all these techniques involve coercion to a greater or lesser degree.
They run counter to the basic idea of the seminar/discussion as
a continuing conversation, similar to the ones that one might have
with friends and neighbors. One cannot imagine using coercion there.
<http://www.ntlf.com/html/ti/images/v13n2a.jpg>
No Coercion
Since my own teaching philosophy has evolved to the point where
I believe that the best learning occurs under conditions that aren't
coercive, I tried a promising experiment this semester that focused
on improving discussion without coercion. The course was on the
"Evolution of Scientific Ideas." The class was comprised
of 17 sophomore students. At the beginning of the very first meeting,
after brief introductions all around, I spoke for a few minutes,
saying that the class would function best if everyone participated
in the discussions. Of course, all instructors say this, and it
usually has little effect.
But then I said that in semi-formal groups such as this, each one
of us had, over time, developed a preferred, or at least customary,
role. We saw ourselves as either "talkers" (people who
volunteered to speak and did so frequently) or "listeners"
(people who preferred to stay silent and rarely, if ever, joined
in the discussion unasked). I asked each person to self-identify,
with me beginning and identifying myself as a talker. (This should
be no surprise. McKeachie reports that the most common cause of
unbalanced discussion is the instructor who typically talks about
70-80% of the time!)
Which Are You?
Six students identified themselves as talkers, while eleven said
they were listeners. I then said that both talking and listening
were essential skills and that we needed to develop both aspects
of our personalities. I then asked all the talkers to sit together
in one part of the room, the listeners to group in another part,
and to discuss amongst themselves the following questions: What
made me become a talker (listener)? How can I develop my listening
(talking) skills? How can I help listeners (talkers) talk (listen)
more?
The two groups spent about 20 minutes discussing these questions.
The talkers group (which I naturally joined), although half the
size of the listeners, made much more noise, talking and laughing
as they discussed, with people jumping in with ideas and comments.
The listeners group was much quieter, with only one person speaking
at a time, but even there the conversation never died down. The
two groups then reported to each other at the end of the time period.
Listener Characteristics
The listeners said they listened and did not talk much because
they felt that their ideas must already be obvious to everyone;
that there was usually no pause in the discussion for them to insert
their ideas; they liked to take in information; they took time to
formulate their ideas and by the time that happened the discussion
had moved on to something else; they did not feel themselves to
be experts and did not want to waste other people's time with their
unformed or poorly articulated views. To overcome these feelings,
they felt that they should force themselves to talk more.
Talker Characteristics
On the other hand, the talkers said that they felt compelled to
share whatever ideas they had; that they thought their ideas were
good; felt compelled to correct ideas they believed were wrong;
were uncomfortable with silence and felt obligated to break it;
and sometimes felt they would explode if they kept silent. They
also said that this behavior had developed over years as they realized
that they liked the attention talkers received, they were noticed
in class by teachers and hence did better, and were often expected
by teachers to respond to questions. To overcome this, they felt
they should force themselves to listen.
An important realization by the listeners was that the talkers
did not need to think their ideas had to be very original or carefully
phrased before they expressed them. Talkers said they often thought
things through while they talked, rather than before. Listeners
realized that their own ideas were not inferior to those of the
talkers. In their private journals to me for that first week, students
said they were totally surprised by the exercise, but that they
enjoyed it because they had never before thought carefully about
why they adopted their particular roles.
The whole class felt that we should try and create the conditions
under which everyone got to participate. It was agreed that this
responsibility should be shared and that the instructor should not
have to play the role of arbitrator or be the focal point of the
discussion. The class as a whole would try to develop good seminaring
skills as we went along, monitoring the discussions so that they
were not dominated by a few people.
Silent Running
I was apprehensive as to how this early discussion would influence
subsequent classes. The next few classes were not promising, with
low levels of participation and discussion. But what I then learned
from their journals was that a few of the talkers (who are the kinds
of students who keep discussions going) had decided to take a vow
of complete silence in order not to dominate the discussions and
to allow space for the listeners! They said they felt discouraged
that the listeners had not immediately picked up the slack. I replied
that they had to be patient, and that it is much harder for a listener
to talk than for a talker to decide to listen. I suggested that
they strive for a balance between domination and silence.
Conversation
The discussions got much better as the semester progressed, with
the distinction between the talkers and listeners getting blurred
but not eliminated. Almost all the listeners seemed to feel much
more at ease in speaking and one or two of them even started talking
to such an extent that they were accused (in good humor) of having
"crossed over" to the talkers.
In a review discussion at the end of the semester, students said
that this initial discussion had had a major impact on how they
viewed their role in the seminar. It had made them more self-reflective
and conscious of how their actions influenced that of others. They
wished that it would be done in other classes as well.
Contact:
Mano Singham
Associate Director, UCITE
University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH 44106-7025
E-mail: msingham@case.edu
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