February 20, 2008
An Instructors' Blog - Teaching Praxis in Soc 203
Post on February 20 2008
Created on Wednesday, 02/09/2008 10:46 AM by Robert Hanneman
I thought that the class meeting yesterday went really well. Each of the four groups seemed to really get into the path analysis exercise, and there was a lot of discussion going on within groups. There were quite a few times when I had the feeling that the most productive thing I could be doing as the teacher is just standing back and watch!
Not that I'm worried about working myself out of a job. Short lectures, picking up on questions and expanding on them, and guiding presentations by prompting are things that I'm actually more comfortable with than regular full-length lectures. That only works, though, if the other participants are engaged enough to ask questions and are willing to take some chances in making presentations that might get critiqued. I was really happy with how well that went in the path analysis exercise.
It was also good to hear some questions about the text -- it reassures me that folks are actually reading it. It is important that there is an effort to read the text before we do the exercise; and then to go back to it again after. I think the format we're using is asking a lot of the students -- there's not as much direct guidance as a regular, more structured class. But they seem to be rising to the challenge (of course, not everybody always does everything they are supposed to do! I don't either: I should carefully re-read the text before each meeting, and I sometimes don't!).
That worry aside, the benefit of having folks do more actual hands-on work, and present and defend, and teach one another, and debate are very appealing. To me, this "feels" a lot more like the kind of professional-peer interaction that occurs in research labs and collaborations. What I would really like instruction to be like is "socialization" for doing real research work. In the theory classes and substantive seminars, individual work and lecture- presentations are great -- I don't think I would try using our current format for classes like that. But for research methods and analysis, a "practicum" that feels a lot like the "real thing" seems appealing.
So, I guess the question that I'd like to ask my kind reader is: do you think that I'm putting too much responsibility on you, and not providing enough guidance? Or, do you think this format is letting you "grow" more than you might in a more traditional class?