Lisa Xin Lin
I taught second-year seminars in creative industries during 2017 and 2018. Media Arts, including film, television and digital media, are ways for young people to express their views creatively and critically, realise their dreams through audio-visual languages. Respecting and acknowledging each student’s creativity and critical thinking is crucial in the process of teaching media arts. Therefore, I designed a critical debate as one of the seminar activities while asking the students to sit next to those with the same opinion. This allows them to leave the comfort zone of their usual friend groups and encourages association with those they wouldn’t necessarily choose but have the same view.
The first seminar began with a question ‘whether media conglomerates are good or bad?’ In the Seminar 1, most of the students chose the latter as I expected, but Seminar 2 turned out to be a different scenario. Half of the students chose the former and half chose the latter. An engaging debate, therefore, took place in the seminar where each side provided their supporting statements and industry evidences. This approach works best if there’s a clear divide of opinions among students. If not, it is the tutor’s role to facilitate the critical thinking and encourage students to provide their examples to defend the debates.
One aim of this approach was to nurture students’ critical thinking prior to the critical analysis assignment; the second aim was to encourage them to apply the knowledge they learnt from the lecture into industry scenario. Drawing on the differences between the concept and the conception, I become aware of the personal differences when meeting a similar situation or subject. It’s crucial in the teaching process to acknowledge the difference between a shared understanding of a ‘concept’ and an individual’s personal and therefore variable response to a concept, their ‘conception’ (Entwistle and Peterson 2004: 408). This also echoes the more general student-centred approach to learning and Bloom’s taxonomy. The debate provides a platform for students to ‘work through’ (Freud 1914) the concepts they learnt from the lectures as well as their personal experiences that are related to the subjects.
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In teaching generally, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on ‘getting your students to speak.’ I’ve had this conversation with fellow Instil participants and colleagues in my department many times. How do you get a good discussion going? How do you get everyone to participate? What strategies can you use to get the quieter students to speak up? Equal participation by students is generally seen as a good thing and something we as tutors desire. It shows that students are confident and feel safe to share their ideas and opinions. It indicates that they’re doing the work and understand, or are trying to understand, the topics they’re studying. The image of a group of students debating one another with civility and intelligence while the tutor sits back and watches, throwing in a perspective-altering insight to mix things up every now and then, is pretty much the educational utopia we’re striving to create, right?
But I read something recently that made me rethink this entirely. It was not a pedagogical textbook, but something I was reading for pleasure. I’d heard the author, Susan Cain, speaking on a podcast I like to listen about relationship advice, and she was so insightful, I thought I’d give her book a read. It’s called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (2012), and while it started out sounding a bit like a self-help business book, it turned out to be a fascinating study of how and why the western world has come to value extroversion - and being outspoken - so highly.
Cain surveys 20th century US cultural history and the rise of the entrepreneurial salesman, with his gumption, compelling oral ability and ability to act fast, as an ideal personality type. Cain considers the championing of this figure and his extrovert characteristics as having resulted in the overshadowing not just more introverted people, but qualities we associate with introversion, such as spending time alone, sustained analysis of people or situations, and caution.
While part of her argument is aimed at critiquing business culture, particularly Wall Street, where the loudest person usually leads, she also looks at how this tendency has shaped educational institutions and teaching strategies. She points to the emphasis placed on group discussion and teamwork from early years schooling right through to university seminars, and the common correlation of intelligence with speaking ability. She backs up her arguments by looking beyond the West, to cultures where being outspoken does not automatically signal superior intelligence and interviews several students from Korea and China who point to the differing biases of North American and East Asian classroom cultures.
It was these ideas that really struck home. I thought back to how group discussion had been central throughout my education, from the praise and recognition one receives in school for putting your hand up and higher marks for ‘class participation,’ through to undergraduate seminars where I often found myself speaking up just to end the tense silences. But having taught in a school and at a university, I’d also been struck by the realisation that students seem to rarely be given time to just think. To ponder, weigh up, or reflect on what they were reading and the ideas they encountered in their classes. I noticed this because I realised I didn’t get to do it much either, as a student or a researcher.
I’d never made a connection between these two things until I read Cain’s book and it immediately made me revise my approach to seminars. Yes, class discussion is an important part of teaching, but it couldn’t be the only thing we did. I needed to give my students time; time to listen to one another, time to digest and time to actually come up with something to say. But I also stopped mentally reproaching those students who seemed to never speak. Not everyone shines in large groups, or even small groups. Some people are better one-to-one. So I shifted my emphasis from whole group discussion to individual reflection time combined with escalating levels of communication.
At this point, some of the strategies I’d come across in Instil sessions and elsewhere seemed useful in a way they hadn’t before. One particularly succesful deployment of these involved asking students to come up with observations about a film in relation to the conventions of film noir. I began by asking students to think by themselves of one thing about the film that made it ‘noir.’ They then had to turn to their neighbour and share their observation with them. If they had the same one, they had to think of another one. Then each pair shared these with the pair across the table. Again, if anyone had the same comment, they had to think up a new one. Once each group had four points, they shared them as a whole group and together we thought up some more.
The success of this approach lay in the fact that students were able to reflect on and come up with answers to the task before being asked to talk to other students. Thanks to the second stage of one-to-one exchange, everyone had to communicate their point to one other person at one point, and was able to contribute to the pool of information being gathered, without being obliged to participate in the larger discussion. I found this was a great way to build rapport between students (sometimes necessary, surprisingly!) and it was supported by a hand out that they had to fill in along the way. There were a couple of downsides: it was a pretty noisy activity, timekeeping was challenging, and students would often get sidetracked by chatting. But they also mostly came away with a hand out that they had filled in, a useful resource for essays and exams later on.
I will continue to adapt this approach and more generally, to draw further inspiration from the revelations prompted by Cain’s book. A particular challenge would be integrating some of these ideas into the goal of getting students to engage with assigned readings in class, something I find especially hard at times.
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I teach technical skills for digital film production. Most sessions go relatively smoothly except for editing. Usually, I have students and equipment carefully positioned in a large room where I can keep an eye on what exactly they are doing. In editing however, students sit behind computers and are supposed to follow along as I demonstrate. The trouble is they often get stuck or suffer technical anxiety that blocks their progress, but they don’t say anything. Or, for all I know, they could be on Facebook.
While researching ways on how to improve these sessions, I came across a blog post by Miriam Posner (2015), “A Better Way to Teach Technical Skills to a Group.” Instead of the usual demonstration-follow-along, she made detailed illustrated tutorials and instructed each student to work their way through the tutorial.
Students could work at their own pace and ask each other for help. Apparently, it was fun: they could laugh and joke with each other while they learned instead of sitting in silence listening to the demonstrator.
“The final missing piece was Post-It notes.” Each student started with a green note in plain view on their computer, signalling all was well. If they swapped it for a red note, it meant they needed assistance. White meant they had completed the tutorial and could go around helping other students.
So, students were challenged by tasks set out in the illustrated tutorial, they could laugh, they felt reassured knowing that the demonstrator was there to help, and they could help each other. The demonstrator could also, at a glance, see how the class was doing via the Post-It notes.
This appears to be a winning combination of programmed learning (Pressey, 1926; Crowder, 1959; and, Skinner, 1965) and the more general student-centred approach to learning (John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Carl Rogers, and Maria Montessori).
I'm busy making detailed illustrated tutorials to see how well the technique works in my editing workshops.
George Eustice
Marcus Samperi
I have always believed that for me to succeed as a teacher then I must be able to not only ignite interest in a given subject but also to capture the students’ imaginations and encourage continued voluntary development away from the classroom environment. This refers to not only the most active, louder and more confidant students in the class but also their quieter, shier counterparts. During my short career as a teacher I have found this latter group more of a challenge to gain access to. This leaves me asking questions, such as: does this group successfully receive all of the key information? Are their questions or queries being adequately addressed during the timetabled class? And, how can I, as their teacher, judge their development over a longer period of time?
Over the past 6 months I have put into practice many theories of engagement to ascertain how different groups of students react. This has included small group work, interactive game playing and tailored pair/group selection, thus taking students away from their usual friend groups and encouraging association with those they wouldn’t necessarily choose. This, although positive at increasing student engagement and building confidence with their peers, still didn’t give me the answers to the aforementioned questions. I was still seeking a positive confirmation that all the students in my classes were receiving the key messages from each session. Without this, how could I achieve what Hubley described as: ‘two-way communication?’ And be certain that no student would be left behind and ultimately become disengaged from the subject material.
Over this period of time I developed a plan to try and tackle this. Within each room I teach is a white board. In preparation of the lesson, I write a question/statement relating to one of the key learning outcomes onto that board. I then position that board so that it promotes both privacy and accessibility. If it is not easily moved or is attached to the wall then I erect a barrier between it and the rest of the class, thus keeping the privacy element intact. The vast majority of my classes are workshop-based where the students are not sitting in one place but actively moving around the space to research skills and to ultimately develop their own unique filmmaking style. The idea is that at anytime throughout the session the students can gain access to and write their thoughts concerning the subject matter on the board including any questions that may arise. The thought being that by knowing that the entire process is private, thus anonymous, then no questions are off-limits even those the student may deem as too simplistic or be too embarrassed to ask in an open class environment. In this scenario that ‘embarrassment’ is taken away.
I have introduced this exercise to the students at the beginning of each session assuring them that it is not compulsory, not marked and completely anonymous. Any comment or question is allowed as long as it relates to what is written in the centre of the board. For the first few sessions there was zero engagement with the board, however, I persevered. After 3 sessions I began to notice a slow uptake, not just with question responses but also with what they had understood about the topic in question. To my surprise, even though I constantly reiterated that I’m happy for them to stay anonymous, they were leaving their names with their comments. Interestingly, the names that were appearing were coming from those deemed by me as the quieter, shier students. The more-and-more sessions that went past I noticed that the students weren’t only just commenting on what was happening in the same class but were drawing from examples/knowledge that they had gained in previous sessions, thus showing signs of critical thinking. This process has proved invaluable when I’m preparing future lesson plans and, more importantly, understanding the level at which the students are receiving the information that I am giving. Over time I am beginning to be more in tune with how those, particularly the quieter students, are progressing through the syllabus. Something, as mentioned previously, I have always been struggling to gain insight in.
This is just the start but it is helping me gain a deeper understanding into how these students are developing through the sessions. Whether this scenario works universally I do not know but it is something I am going to explore further as time progresses.
For those reading this, I would be interested in finding out what has worked for you in terms of tracking the understanding level and progress of your quieter, shier students.
I think your concerns are not only totally normal and relatable, but also crucial in determining how you progress as a teacher, or rather, how we all progress! Discovering a teaching style that can ignite interest in all of our students is probably, if not the biggest challenge we face as teachers, but finding out its affectivity is just as crucial. How do we know whether what works for the confident few, works for their less vocal peers? I teach in the Drama, Theatre & Dance department, and despite it’s reputation, drama is actually not full of jazz hands and spotlight seekers; many of my students are quiet, thoughtful and considerate in what they say, when they say it and who they feel comfortable saying it to.
I am lucky that my seminar groups are relatively small, up to 15 people per session. This means that over the term I get to connect with my students and have a relaxed and open rapport with them, perhaps a relationship that would be near to impossible with a larger group. Often when I ask students how they feel about a topic, they will happily come forward with their concerns. However I have found setting group work really helps me identify who is struggling and might not want to say. When you are watching 3-5 students work together, it’s often easier to see who understands something and who is struggling, compared to when you are having one collective discussion led by familiar faces/voices, although frustratingly this isn’t always the case either!
I think your idea is brilliant, particularly for larger groups or extremely introverted students. Having a space for anonymous feedback and questions means the people who are less likely to speak up have a different medium through which to channel their insecurities and worries, session by session. It gives them a safe way to communicate with you, and provides you with clearer indication of what works and how to pitch your future sessions - it’s definitely something I could see myself doing to tackle monitoring the progress of my quieter students.
~Emma Meade Chapman
This approach really chimes with some of the issues I’ve been thinking about in my own teaching practice and I like the way you’ve adapted something that works for the quieter students as well as the more talkative ones. Unlike yours, my seminars take the traditional form of everyone sitting around a table, so I’d be interested to explore adapting your idea to that setting. Maybe handing out something for students to fill in anonymously and drop into a hat at the beginning of class? I think this could work for generating discussion of the film we’ve just seen, how they found the assigned readings, or even just terms they don’t understand. I’m looking forward to trying this out next term!
Clarissa K. Jacob
I’d be interested to explore adapting Marcus Samperi’s methods of engagement to ensure that no student is left behind. This has included small group work, interactive game playing and tailored pair/group selection, thus taking students away from their usual friend groups and encouraging association with everyone in the seminar.
Marcus may find the approach of anonymous online quizzes helpful in developing further interaction with respect to privacy: See the Information Security page.
Lisa Xin Lin