Part of a short series of posts discussing activities, strategies, or materials that have worked for me in my teaching. Maybe they can work for you, too…
The Thing:
Working Definitions as a Class Exercise
The basics of the activity is just this: the first day, with most (if not all) materials unseen/unread, I ask the students to write a short definition of a key course concept. Usually this is formed as a question. For religion courses, it was almost always: “What do you think religion is? What does it do?” For my world literature course themed around freedom it was usually: “What do you think it means to be free?” And for a business ethics course it was: “What do you think ‘business’ is? And what is/are ‘ethics?’” And so on.
In traditional in-person settings, I’d ask this to be written on a piece of paper students could set aside or turn in. In online settings, I’d set this up as an online forum thread. The point is to create a copy that can be returned to later.
It is always important to me that this be informal and off-the-cuff. It is never homework; I don’t want students overthinking or being tempted by research or aphorism-gathering. Part of the value is getting them to articulate where they are with the concept in an honest, practical way.
In person, after a 5-10 minute writing period, I start asking students to share and record their responses on the board to review and discuss. I would also collect the papers at the end of the class period to check the responses of those not comfortable sharing aloud.
The most common thing I do is hold on to the papers, and then hand them back half-way through or at the end of the semester and ask students to revisit what they wrote. Discussion centers on questions such as: Would you change what you wrote? Why? Did particular materials or exercises from the class change your mind? If you wouldn’t change, what things we’ve studied back up your view? And so on and so on.
Why It Works:
1 – It’s an easy first-day exercise.
Some of the best advice I got early in my teaching career was to actually teach something the first day of class. This is an easy way to do that, because it gets students thinking about class concepts without requiring materials. Everyone can participate. It’s also interactive; while I can ask follow-up questions or nudge for refinement of the definitions, the discussion starts from where the students start it. Heaven knows students get talked at plenty on first days! I’ve found they welcome a chance to participate.
2 – It’s useful – to all of us.
Students get to hit the ground running. They know up front what we’ll be dealing with, and they have a head start thinking about it. They get practice formulating and expressing a view. They get to recognize where they stand and also learn where classmates stand.
I as the instructor get two samples of where students are – with the concept itself and with how they express things. I also know what I do and don’t need to cover, since I see where everyone is beginning with the class concepts. I have a ready-made benchmark to refer to later (as I often do; see above).
All of us start with a unique shared vocabulary. No two groups have all the same answers, but each group shares its own. I can refer to these definitions in lectures, build on them with later activities, work them into essays or test questions, and so on. Again – I’ve found value in having these sorts of things created in common and not just given to students by me. Student ownership of material and of some class structures is a common theme in these Things That Have Worked; these definitions are a way for students to take ownership of class ideas – and, often, shape where discussions go.
3 – It encourages self-knowledge and self-assessment.
To do this, students have to figure out where they stand on an issue. Because it is an open-ended exercise, there is no judgment involved – we are simply hearing and examining different views. It’s low-stakes but also important. Hopefully they learn that being clear matters more in this case than being “right” about the issue. It’s also an early lesson on making space for differing views and testing how well they coexist.
The revisiting aspect allows students to reflect both on their own thoughts but also on the implications of what we’ve studied – and it encourages them to see the course as something that can affect their thinking (not just their GPA). Of course, there is also no “right” to the reassessment. If their views don’t change, they don’t – but, ideally, they have to think a little about why.
When this has worked, it’s been a fun way to share ownership of the class, to get to know my students better, and to sneak a little second-order thinking into their experience. I define that as a win.
Brantley Craig 