Sculpting a Seminar: - Based on a "seminar on seminars" presented to me by a colleague:
Whenever one of us (teachers that is) sits down to write a class, there are some important questions we need (and hopefully do)to ask ourselves. Some of these are more obvious than others:
“What am I teaching today?”
“What will the homework be?”
“Do my students have the background for this?”
Maybe even – “Will my students enjoy the class?”
But there are also a handful of questions that are not as frequently asked (or at least addressed);
“Am I seeking mastery of this topic? An introduction? Is it review?”
“When I leave class, how will I know if my students understood?”
“Am I actively engaging my students in the class? How so? What are they doing?”
Today I want to write about one particular set of questions. Who is speaking in my class? How are they speaking, and to what purpose? Why? Much of how I run class varies by subject, but in all of them I try to have my students doing work, answering questions and discussing ideas. However, I’d never thought about it anymore in depth than that. That is until I attended this short talk on how to run a seminar. While none of my classes are seminar based, I found lots to think about and improve upon.
I was preliminarily asked “when do I want my students speaking in class?” And, “when my students do speak in class, how do I know if the conversation has gone well?” Much of these answers, in their details, fall upon the particular subject that one teaches. I will not address my specific answers, as I am choosing to write about the universal ideas, but rather the themes that seemed to appear in answers throughout the room.
There are two common ways of assessing the success of a conversation in a class. That is, we can seek a quantity of participation, or a quality of ideas. Some, in fact many, conversations are considered a success if a critical mass of one’s students have shared thoughts and ideas. By contrast, success can be measured by the depth of knowledge presented in a student’s answers. Are their questions clarifying or probing? Does a student debate rise out of conflicting ideas? Neither of these is a more true measure of success than another, but as a teacher you must have an awareness of which of these is your goal. That is to say, where on the spectrum between these two do you choose to fall?
So let’s suppose that we have established what we (speaking as a unified being) desire in our classroom conversation. What can we do to help promote that success? Do we give our class a prompt and hope for the best? It’s unlikely. First, it takes confidence to speak out in front of one’s peers. We have an obligation to make the classroom a safe environment to take risks in. Even then things can be challenging. But, as students begin to present their ideas, encourage repetition. When you emphasize a student’s comment you give them confidence in what they are saying. Similarly, draw in a quiet student. Be excited about a point and ask a new student to repeat it. This does two things. First, it keeps your class alert and aware as perhaps you’ll call on someone else. Secondly, the quiet student now knows that this information is important; it is safe. Since there’s no risk in the idea (you said to repeat it), you cannot be ridiculed for what you say. Lastly, a conversation flows. It does not have a source and it is not trying to end. Do not let a conversation be ping-pong between you and your students. Do whatever you can to get them speaking to each other; then just direct.
And this all allows us address what we want our students to do, and once going, how we can make the environment as ideal as possible. But returning to our preparation of a class, how will we present our material? This can be done in three main ways:
1) Lecture
2) Discussion
3) Conversation
The differences here are key. Know which you are doing and let it be clear. A lecture is what many of us try to avoid. It is not interactive – often referred to as direct instruction. There are times in the year that I have information my students need. Before they can try it, they need to hear it. In those times, I will be speaking, and delivering information to my students. This is a lecture.
A discussion has more variance to it. In a discussion, I can premise a question and open the floor to the students. They can move around in their beliefs and what they say, but as things progress I must correct errors and lead the students in the correct direction. It is important to realize that in the discussion there IS a correct answer. Your job is to help your students lead themselves there, but make sure they get there in the end.
Finally, a conversation. The background has been done. The information is available. The students are left to express their ideas and provide their reasons. In a conversation there is debate, and some arguments are better supported than others, but there is not a correct answer. Much of education is not about right and wrong, but rather support and reason. A conversation lets you hear points of view that might otherwise remain hidden, and might stimulate new thoughts of your own. You never know when or where you’ll hear a new idea.
When this topic was presented to me I was shown at this point the following clip:
Click Here!!!
For those of you who skipped the clip, GO WATCH IT. For those of you who have watched, you likely recognize it as the “Burn the Witch” scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (I don’t actually know the scene title …but sure…). This is a valuable teaching moment, where the knight (or soon to be knight) is the teacher, and the townsfolk are the students. What kind of lesson does he use? Is it a lecture? No; at no point does he deliver information to his students. Is it a discussion? Yes; he lets his students partake in answering questions and debating to help lead them to what he “knows” to be the correct answer.
The method presented is often referred to as the Socratic Method – a tool frequently employed by teachers to help students come to realizations on their own accord. However, while this is a powerful and valuable tool, it must be done correctly. Questions must be carefully crafted to truly initiate thought and discussion. If you re-watch this clip, you’ll notice that there is very little thought put into the student responses. Rather, the questions prompted a barrage of words. This can be referred to as the “magic word game”. Don’t play the magic word game! Students don’t need to think to play it, and if there is only 1 right answer you are left with two likely cases. First, your students don’t know the word and won’t get there – leading to frustration and a loss of confidence. Second, your students get there through guessing, but what do you gain from that? What do they gain from that? Your goal should be to force students to consider ideas and concepts, not throw “very small rocks”.
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When designing a lesson, know when your students will speak, how you will assess that participation, and what you can do to help generate healthy interactions. How do you want information to be revealed? It can at times be correct to lecture. Try not to do it often or for a long time, but if it were never to be used, then why are we the teachers? Don’t we have the information!? Be careful in separating discussion and conversation. Remember that one has a correct answer and the other does not. Lastly, don’t play the “magic word game”. It takes away from the value of discussion and leads to unhealthy classroom interactions.
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As a small add-on, Author is asked “who are you that is so wise in the ways of science?” Truthfully, there was no science involved. Given that this was a discussion, there was a known answer already. Science takes an idea, and uses methods to seek the truth. Weighting a woman against a duck to determine her composition to be of wood, on a likely faulty scale is hardly the scientific method that we try to employ in our schools. In many ways, the scientific method is a conversation. Sure, there may be a correct answer, but we – none of us – know it. Science is the presentation of ideas to build support for a belief. That is a conversation.
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