At 12:58 PM 2/22/2001 -0500, Nathalie Cote wrote:
>I'm having some trouble in my Research Methods class that I'm hoping wiser
>or more experienced TIPSters can help me with. Context: There are twelve
>juniors in the class, we're using a text by Vadum and Rankin, they'll take
>three exams and write three short journal article analysis papers, two lab
>reports, and a term project which is the lit review and proposal for what
>will be their senior thesis next year. The course has a reputation for being
>difficult. I've had all of them in other courses before so they know my
>style, which is to intersperse lecturing with class discussions and demos
>and to provide a lot of support outside of class. I'm a good teacher, and I
>usually have no difficulty generating discussions in other classes. However,
>in this one I'm finding that not only can I not get a general discussion
>going, I can't even get students to answer simple questions that I know most
>of them can answer, like "what's the difference between a positive and a
>negative correlation?" or "why do you need a control group?"
<snip>
Last summer I taught a course titled Research Methods in Social
Psychology. Same size as your class (12 students). Both stats and basic
methods were prereqs, so when students came in on the first day I told them
that I know a lot of them feel uncomfortable about research methods
courses, but that they really do know a lot about methods already. I then
gave them a short (ungraded - gotta tell them that upfront or they really
sweat) general methods quiz. It had questions similar to the ones you
mentioned above. After the quiz, I said that probably few got everything
right, but they probably did better than they thought without any
preparation. I then told them to take the quizes home and correct them
using their textbook. I asked them to use a different color pen to make
corrections and that their corrected answers would count for a grade next
class period. Now, what does this have to do with your problem? Well,
starting the next class period I started every class for the rest of the
quarter by asking this set of questions. We sat in a circle, and I would
semi-randomly choose a starting point and we would go around clockwise. If
someone got stuck it was up to the class to help each other out. I
explained to the class that they really should "know" the answers to these
questions, not just memorize something that I would accept (I tried to vary
the form of the questions and would occasionally ask a student to rephrase
their answer). At the beginning of the quarter it might take 40 minutes
for the students to work through the answers to the dozen questions (such
as: what is reliability? What is validity? Can you have one without the
other? etc.) and there was some disagreement and confusion. I had no
problem spending as much time on these questions as we needed because we
really couldn't move on until everyone had a solid understanding of these
concepts. By the end of the class it took about 10 minutes, with very few
errors and you could see in their faces that they had no fear about
whatever one of the questions I might ask when it was their turn. I
believe that this helped tremendously with class participation on more
difficult questions. By the end of the class I had students comfortably
critiquing the methods I used in my dissertation (that was not quite
finished at the time).
I think this worked for several reasons. First, they were set up for
success. In the beginning I didn't mind if they used their corrected
quizzes to help with their oral answers (I didn't explicitly tell them to
do so). If they did, I always asked them if they could explain it again
using different words. Second, each student was accountable. Noone wanted
to hold up the group and I asked specific students specific
questions. Third, it was relatively non-threatening. I would help
struggling students craft their answers, or better get their classmates to
do so. There was a spirit of collaboration. Fourth, it was
relevant. These issues were woven into the rest of the coursework.
A couple of other things that also helped with the more difficult
discussions were:
1. individual introductions at the start of the quarter - so everyone knew
each other
2. my effort to learn each student's name and use it
3. lots of smaller group work (2, 3, or 4 people) who then presented to
the larger group - this might be particularly appropriate for you to try
based on where you are in the semester/quarter now
4. freewriting on a topic before sharing. If I ask students to freewrite,
then ask them to discuss and noone is saying anything, I ask them what they
wrote. Occasionally I find out that my question was too vague, other times
I find out that they were just being bashful
It's not easy guiding a class discussion, and every new class is
different. Hopefully some of these suggestions will help.
Oh, and BTW, that quiz that I used throughout the course, I then used as a
last day of class extra credit quiz, which nearly everyone aced. I loved
this class and I'm getting to teach it for the second time this
spring. I'll probably share lots of what goes on in detail when it comes up.
Don
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Donald J. Rudawsky
University of Cincinnati
Dept. of Psychology
PO Box 210376
Cincinnati, OH 45210-0376
513.558.3146
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://homepages.uc.edu/~rudawsdj
