Tag Archives: things that have worked

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:

Modern-Day Examples of a Topic

This is a discussion exercise, and it starts with homework: students have to bring to the next class a current example of something we are discussing. For example, in my courses on myths – a modern-day hero (current movie trends have made this super-easy); in a literature class discussing Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, a current fictional heroine/woman character.

Part of the homework is to be ready to explain something about the example – for the heroes, why they fit the category; for the fictional women, something about their stories (and, in the Woolf context, how true they are to the actual position of women in their/our time).

Thus prepared, we have a fund of current examples to drive class discussion on the day.

Why It Works:

1 – I’m not the expert.

Because students pick the examples, they know about them. Also, given human nature, they pick things or people they care about and have an interest in (sometimes “heroes” are even family members!). This means that the students get to be the experts on what we discuss, and that they have more “buy-in” than they sometimes do on topics I assign. It can also up the fun factor and participation, since everyone likes to hold forth on things they enjoy.

2 – There’s usually something new.

Obviously, it’s good to have shared topics and common examples – this is what a syllabus is for! I have found, though, that opening up the floor to examples like this lets a lot of exciting new options in. Someone always brings in something other students (or I) have not heard about. In the cases where people choose personal or family examples, we learn personal perspectives and history. In this sense, the exercise allows “extra” learning. I may have assigned the context, and I do have topic-related outcomes in mind – but along the way, the class is exposed to new, unplanned content.

3 – Relevance.

I am always on the lookout for ways to let students see how topics and concepts of a course live outside the classroom. This does that. Whether or not they realize it, just by choosing their examples, they are applying course concepts to the “outside world.” More than that, though, this sends the message that some of the things we study are all around them, every day – at home, at the movies, on TV, in the news, etc.

It also lends some authority to what we’re discussing. It’s one thing to discuss how Woolf’s own examples make her point, or how Joseph Campbell can provide examples of his kind of hero – after all, they are choosing their own evidence! It’s another thing to see that the authors’ points hold up on students’ own turf. Again, it lets them see our material and its ideas as not just “academic,” but also descriptive of the “real” world.

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:

A “Value Line” set-up day

The “value line” is an activity I learned in a workshop years ago. You give students statements to rank their agreement with on some scale (1 to 5 or 1 to 10) with one end being “strongly agree” and the other being “strongly disagree.” Easy enough. But then they have to embody the rankings by standing in a line by number for each statement. As each number explains its stance, students are allowed to move in line.

On its face, this is a version of the ranking sort of thing I wrote about in another post – so a good way to engage opinion-based discussion.

The unique thing here, though, is that I sometimes use these the day we start a new unit of a course. The statements students are given are ones that have discussion value on their own but also (though they don’t know it yet) set up what’s coming later in the unit. Thus, for a literature class where I know we have stories coming up dealing with media, one statement might be “Modern technology helps people stay connected.” Or, starting a unit on contemporary religious life in America, a statement might be “Religion has caused more problems than it has solved in the last 50 years.”

After the value line day, students are instructed to keep the sheet of statements. I often ask, on later days, which ones they think are relevant – and if what we read/studied/talked about changed their mind.

Why It Works:

1 – Options, again.

Repeat here, to some degree, all the things I wrote about ranking exercises in general. Students have options to choose from, there is no one right answer, all that is needed is a considered opinion, and so on. And there’s a debate aspect. Watching students move around as their classmates talk is fun, and means they’re thinking.

2 – It’s a “free” day that’s not, really.

Part of the good news of this exercise is that there’s no advance reading or other homework. Our focus is just on the statements I provide. I’ve found students welcome this, since it lets them discuss something that is not a text or a film or a theory. They can bring their own experiences in, and usually do. It feels like a “break” from class content. Except that, from my point of view, it’s not: these general statements are laying groundwork for the issues we will bring to or find in specific materials later. That’s not an emphasized part of the activity, though, so it feels lower-stakes.

The payoff does work – students enjoy making the later-class connections, and sometimes surprise me by making a case for a statement/reading relationship I had not thought about.

3 – It’s physical.

Don’t underestimate the value of a get-up-and-move day when so much of what college courses do is about the mind. This is something that’s actually different. And, since they have to stand somewhere, no one can hide or hedge their opinion. They have to literally take a stand on the issue. For students who are visual learners, it’s great to actually see how people line up on a statement. Sometimes we stop to discuss what “evenness” or “one-sidedness” actually looks like, and if it’s surprising.  

A bonus: I often go sit at a desk while the students line up in the front of the room. After a few statement-lines, someone inevitably starts grumbling about having to stand up so much. At that point, I gently (if slyly) remind them that most other days, they sit while I stand the whole time! So this can be also just a bit of an empathy exercise…

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:

Ranking Exercises

It is what it says. I ask students to rank a collection of things on a scale I provide.

Two examples:

(From a World Literature Class) Rank the following kinds of Freedom in importance to Frederick Douglass, based on what you read in his Narrative: Physical, Mental, Economic, Creative, Legal. 1 is most important; 5 is least important. Be ready to justify your answers.

(From a literary theory class) Rank the following in terms of their claim to be “art”: To the Lighthouse, Hamilton, “Game of Thrones,” Avengers: Endgame, Twilight, “Law and Order,” Hamlet, “Star Trek.” 1 is the highest ranking. Be ready to justify your answers.

Usually, I make this group work to limit sample size and start debates early. Each group has a certain amount of time to discuss. Then I ask them to share the rankings, which I record on the board. Then, as a class, we discuss commonalties, differences, and trends in the rankings.

This can be done individually – I have done that in online situations where this becomes homework or a forum exercise. In person, though, groups work well and create stakes right out of the gate – you have to convince your groupmates!

Why It Works:

1 – Students like options. This has them.

I’ve learned in years and years of teaching that students dislike feeling there’s one right answer (maybe this is fear, maybe it’s a desire to seem even-handed – but I get a lot of “a little of both” answers, especially in essays). This eliminates that by having a lot of variables for them to favor or not. There are no absolutes. The extra good thing is that, once they get past the “right/wrong” roadblock, they really can look at other, more conceptual, merits.

2 – Nobody loses.

More good news for students: other than that they do it, I don’t care what they land on. I will give the ranking I have in mind if pressed – but this is 100% not a “Guess what Dr. Craig is thinking” exercise. The point is to reason out the pros and cons of each ranked option, and to get students talking about them. And a good thing about having options in the first place is that everyone is bound to have an opinion on at least one of them. Even a student who (ahem) has not done the full reading of Douglass’s Narrative could at least chime in with the knowledge that he escaped slavery to push for, say, physical freedom as a top choice.

3 – Everyone loves a debate.

When all goes well, this is just plain fun. Debating relative merits is classic water-cooler or dinner-party (or comment thread!) stuff, so it’s easy to get into. In the group setting, the debating starts internally as groups have to reach consensus (I sometimes get “dissenting opinions,” and I allow that if well-reasoned). Sometimes I notice groups hurriedly changing things as they hear earlier groups present. Usually the groups take pride in their findings, and so enjoy explaining their justification. Since any judgment is reserved for when everyone is done, this becomes a way to share reasoned opinions that everyone feels comfortable with. Plus, “judgment” in this case is mostly me saying things like “I see X is the big winner at number one for a lot of you…why is that?”

A bonus: I get to check, as they go, to make sure no one has really misunderstood the issues at hand. If they have, it can often be gently corrected by asking them to “re-rank” considering a different factor. I usually circulate among groups as we go to check in and take questions or monitor what’s being talked about.

These days have been some of my favorites in class. I’d rank this exercise very near the top…

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:

Format Switch Assignments

As it sounds, the idea here is to encourage students to take something they encounter in one format (I’m a literary guy, so this is usually a text), and make a version of it in another format. One example I have used is to have them pick a scene from a novel, and describe how they would film it. Another I’ve used is to create a “Twitter feed” for a character or historical figure (Dostoevsky’s Underground Man and the Apostle Paul have both been given this treatment in classes). This is done as an in-class activity, and usually in groups so that students can bounce ideas off one another. Plus, making it part of how they participate spares me grading anyone’s subjective ideas of cool camera angles and whatnot.

Why It Works:

1 – It’s creative, and so hopefully fun.

This exercise is a nice shift away from asking straightforward analysis or detail questions. It lets students flex some intellectual muscles they may not otherwise get to. In the process, I notice that different students take the lead in these groups than do in other sorts of assignments. There also seems to be satisfaction in making and sharing something; there is a clear, tangible, shareable, and hopefully enjoyable result. There’s almost always a lot of humor involved, especially with the social media exercises.

2 – They have to know more than they think.

The method to the madness of course is that, for this to work, they have to dive into the original and make decisions about what matters. For the filming exercise, say, they have to have a sense for what is important about the scene they choose, and then find visual ways to convey that information. For the Tweeting exercise, they have to have a grasp of the person’s style, personality, and worldview – and again, the knowledge of how to convey that in short bursts of text, and in a way that suits contemporary media. The sneaky secret is that I am asking analysis questions, just in a roundabout way. Please don’t tell my students that, though.

3 – They learn by sharing.

I always say I understand something better after teaching it to others, and this gives students a low-stakes taste of that dynamic. In re-presenting the material, they are processing it and taking ownership of it. They become the experts for the time being (which is always a good feeling), but it’s also a good way to reinforce important ideas or concepts. Exercises like this also hopefully give students tools they can use on their own. A format switch might be a good way to study for some students, for example. Anything that opens their eyes to new ways of questioning, presenting, or thinking about material is all to the good.