—I Love Forms: ”Discussion Reflection Worksheet.rtf” (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)
Will a form like this – filled out in the last five minutes of a class period, and then compiled and resubmitted in a portfolio — help students recognize and develop the critical thinking skills necessary for participation in college seminars? Or will they blow it off as busywork?
Last term in my freshman composition class, I put more than the usual amount of effort into making sure that each student contributed to each class discussion or workshop. I’d call on students, asking them to share the “agenda item” they had prepared for the day’s discussion, or to share an interesting agenda item they read on a peer blog. I’d help the student get a discussion going, and ask a few probing questions of my won. Then I’d jot down a mark from 0 to 4 (to be factored into the class participation grade), and move along.
I didn’t always get through the whole class each period, but the students who were regular contributors (and who might otherwise have dominated the conversation) learned to hold their thoughts until I had called on a good chunk of students, after which I would usually throw the floor open for general discussion.
I had students blog their agenda items before class started. Shortly before class started, I would check the blogs, noting who was actively participating in an online discussion and who hadn’t yet posted their agenda items. That helped focus our discussion time, though it didn’t exactly result in riveting blogging. And that’s OK with me… I have plenty of other opportunities to focus on blogging as a subject of academic inquiry, and they will more frequently be called upon to produce traditional college essays.)
Given that I deliberately tried not to sound too enthusiastic about blogs in this class, I was surprised that, in response to an open-ended question such as “What assignment or class activity helped you the most?” students mentioned the agenda items most frequently — followed closely by the comments I made on their rough drafts.
I’d like to think that my comments on their drafts helped them more than they realized; and I’d like to think that my attention to getting students to bring agenda items to the floor was also a useful strategy. They did perceive value in the blog/agenda/discussion interactions, so naturally I’ll try to emphasize it a little more this term. Still, I wouldn’t want create an environment in which students only contributed when the structure calls for it.
Being the blog geek that I am, naturally I’d be happy asking them to use their blogs to reflect on their classroom participation, but I don’t think it’s fair to expect students to criticize themselves in a public forum — hence the old-fashioned paper worksheet.
Thanks for your feedback. You’re welcome to use and modify the form… that’s why I included a link to the .rtf source.
My instinct would ordinarily be to let the conversation keep going for the last few minutes, but my thinking now is that asking students to reflect on what they have learned will be a good strategy. I don’t think I do that enough… that is, I keep piling things one on top of the other, secure in my own knowlege that each exercise is designed to prepare for the next one… but I haven’t always built into my courses a mechanism to determine whether in fact students are making those connections. This is an attempt to move in that direction.
The whole idea of getting students to place their contribution into categories is to get them thinking about other ways to contribute. Once students figured out that I like a lively class discussion, a handful seemed to make pacts with each other to disagree loudly with each other, regardless of whether either had done the readings. I based the form on the cognitive domain of educational objectivs (Bloom et al), which I generally introduce towards the middle of a term.
In presenting this worksheet, I can see where I left out a few important details.
I’ve been tweaking the way I use blogs in classes where blogging (as a rhetorical mode or as a cultural practice) is not the subject. In a class of 30, I might aim to comment meaningfully on 10 student blogs, help 10 students lead the class through a discussion of their agenda item, and then respond meaningfully to 10 of in-class activities (such as these “Discussion Reflection Worksheet” forms).
The form is a way to work those objectives into the informal discussions, so that students are more familiar with them when it comes time to write.
What a great idea! I like the way this form not only involves self-assessment, but also offers strategies for enhancing participation. It seems useful for a moment of reflection at the end of the hour, but when you mentioned that you “didn’t always get through the whole class period” I wondered whether, if I were in your shoes, I would have punted the form in order to give students more time to discuss instead. In addition to the inherent “boringness” of mechanical form-filling, that’s the trouble with doing something like this too regularly — it chews up valuable class time. Like you, I’m always eager to get student participation roiling, of course, so I might borrow or modify this form sometime (if you don’t mind) and see how it works. How do you manage your class when everyone’s competing to participate in all these ways at the same time? Just as a lethargic class where everyone is quiet can pose problems, so too can the inverse — a class where everyone’s hand is up all the time. When those moments happen, I know the class dynamic is hot, but those are also moments where I might have students turn to writing or small groups instead. Anyway, great post! (Though the connection to blogging wasn’t clear to me, I like that stuff too). I appreciate how you open your class approaches and worksheets to the world on this blog and in your online resource room…keep it up!