Identify
where you think students may fail in an assignment in your syllabus, and how
you will use that as a teachable moment by design.
I think that
students are most likely to struggle with the group composition project,
specifically in reaching a consensus of the most relevant sections and the most
important devices at work within these sections. Although I will be actively
mediating online discussion, I think that students will struggle with accepting
others’ ideas as potentially better than their own. I hope to illustrate to
students that collaboration is not always an easy process, and I hope to
illustrate to them the most appropriate methods for going about refuting
another’s idea.
I will stress the
importance of maintaining an open mind and of providing an ample amount of
evidence to back one’s claims. I hope to
teach students that clear communication and concise presentation of their
thoughts is vital for reaching an agreement of this nature, and I wish to
illustrate to them that an argument is not entirely valid until backed with
substantial claims. I expect there to be
some difficulty among students in reaching an agreement and in supporting the
claims that they make with solid evidence and appropriate sources. I wish to use this assignment not only as a
project through which to introduce the benefits and difficulties of
collaboration, but also to show students how they should go about arguing. I want them to understand, in the end, that
arguing is a healthy, necessary part of academic discussion, and I want them to
able to engage in this type of discussion appropriately and with the proper end
goals in mind.
I think you make a good point with argument being a healthy part of collaboration-- and that it's important to figure out how to facilitate arguments in a constructive way. I think it's easy to fall into the idea of argument = fight, instead of argument = discussion, and this seems like a good way to introduce students to that frame. Additionally, it might help when students go to write argumentative papers!
ReplyDeleteGroup-thinking is extremely hard to nail down, especially when you have students who easily disagree or agree and therefore can't really keep an open mind when reaching a consensus of any relevant sections. The trouble with arguments is that students easily see arguments as either fights, as mentioned by Leah and exemplified by Monty Python's argument clinic, and overall name-callings of the people that they disagree with. So yeah, students do need to be put in an open mindset that lets students judge the good and bad parts of an argument accordingly. That way, they can stray more away from absolutes and biases.
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