----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 4)Strategies for teaching freshmen in a seminar setting: I'd like to throw in my two cents on this, a strategy that works pretty well across a wide range of student abilities, proclivities for speaking out. For many of the reading assignments I produce a sheet with the author, title, etc. information on it that I call "questions to guide your reading and our class discussion." Sometimes I post these to BB before the class in which we discuss the text, sometimes I hand out in class. It depends on my mood, and the complexity of the reading. Here are examples of the sorts of things I include on the sheet, taken from a variety of different courses. You will see that this is very text based: page X, paragraph 3, line Y. I am trying to get the students to practice backing up what they say about the readings by referring to the readings. Since I require this is all the papers. Once you generate these sorts of questions, then you can have students work in pairs to produce responses, one or two responses per pair or threesome of students, then after they've spent 15 minutes or so working that out, then they can present their responses to the class, with you filling in detail as needed. Working in this focused way before opening up to unguided class discussion tends to keep the bs level down. Anyway, to the examples from two different texts that I use in the 300 level Political Economy class I teach (enrollments vary from about 15 to 25, and the course is an Eco requirement). These refer to Chapter 4, "Planning and the Industrial System" in JK Galbraith's The New Industrial State. (I don't use page numbers here b/c the students in the class are using a wide variety of editions with different page numbers, but the chapters are broken in to lots of subsections.) In section 2. "Poor societies in the past have had a considerable capacity to save as their surviving monuments attest." Explain and discuss. Identify modern parallels. In section 3. Explain and discuss the similarities and differences between voluntary and involuntary savings. Give examples. In section 4. As large industrial concerns bring the supply of capital under internal control they do not have to rely on markets as much for funds for new investment. What, if anything, does this imply about the interest elasticity of investment? Why might this elasticity vary over the business cycle? As firms gain control over the supply of capital, does this affect their relation to labor? Why? In section 6. "If one of the motives for developing internal sources of savings is to free the firm from the uncertainties in the rate of interest, it is evident that the decision on this saving will not be affected by the rate of interest." What are the key logical steps leading to this conclusion? What are the implications for monetary policy? In section 7. Why does JKG say, "To prevent depression is to make the supply of savings even more ample?" And then at the end of the section he says, "Not a shortage of saving but a recession resulting from the failure to use all available savings is the specter that haunts all policy makers." What is the paradox here? Questions to Guide our Discussion. From, Kuttner, "The Imperial Market," Chapter 2, Everything for Sale. 1. Page 39, para.2, lines 8 and 9. Give examples of the "uglier face of the market" and explain the term "social income as a right of citizenship." 2. Page 40. List some "extra-market motivations" at work in social relations. Assess the importance of these motivations for the quality of life. 3. Page 41. Explain Kuttner's claim that the economist's use of the term rationality is tautological (i.e., it is a truism; it is true by definition). Give examples. How does this internal logical problem challenge the conclusions put forward by pro-market economists? 4. Page 42. Discuss the relationship between the campaign against smoking cigarettes and the position taken by those who believe that market solutions cannot be improved upon? 5. Page 43. Explain the concept of "revealed preferences." 6. Page 47, paragraph 2. Discuss the differences in motivation and behavior in citizens and consumers. What, if anything, does this suggest about public policy? Last point, then I will go back to grading papers. If this is about the only class these students have where there really aren't right/wrong answers, where what you are looking for is development of interpretive skills in a particular context, then it really does help if you clue them into that. Especially if this is a public college that is not overly selective, students will be confused since they have been trained to think of education as getting the right answer by following the right steps. You may want to assign a reading about "higher order thinking" and give them class time to discuss it. My favorite, "A Nudge Is Best Helping Students through the Perry Scheme of Intellectual Development," Robert J. Kloss. http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/Kloss.htm This article compares three different models of student cognitive development. http://www.isd.uga.edu/faculty/tuga/fall00/fall00.html This is THE article on how students are socialized to different learning styles. It connects issues of class to pedagogic strategies and epistemology. A wonderful read. And students find it very helpful too. http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/hiddencurriculum.htm If you are interested I can send you my questions to guide class discussion for Kloss. Susan F. Feiner ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]