Thursday morning I taught my first course to Slovenian students. There were about 45 students in the class, most of whom are similar to our sophomore biology majors. The students speak very good English, although they seem very shy. I am hoping to get to know them, but the system here seems to discourage much interaction between students and faculty (faculty eat separately, and even have their own bathrooms). The students said that they have never seen a syllabus with course objectives, and they have never been required to discuss anything. Typically courses are delivered as lectures, and the students take exams during the summer and fall on that material. They can attempt to pass the exam up to five times. My colleagues here tell me that students rarely go to lecture….. we’ll see.
I decided to push my students a bit and require them to read some simple journal articles, write a summary and then be prepared to discuss their thoughts on the paper in class. When I announced that they would be required to do this three times during the semester – I could see some panic on their faces. I quickly assured them that they would work in groups and that I would not put anyone on the spot. It will be interesting to see if they open up to a type of pedagogy that they are not used to. I will report on how it goes.
I decided to push my students a bit and require them to read some simple journal articles, write a summary and then be prepared to discuss their thoughts on the paper in class. When I announced that they would be required to do this three times during the semester – I could see some panic on their faces. I quickly assured them that they would work in groups and that I would not put anyone on the spot. It will be interesting to see if they open up to a type of pedagogy that they are not used to. I will report on how it goes.
I had the same experience when I introduced statistics to the College of the Marshall Islands. However, it did not take long for the Marshallese students (longer for their faculty) to warm up to and appreciate our teaching pedagogy. I believe you'll see behavioral changes before mid-terms...
ReplyDeletethat is what bothers me as well.. school system is designed so that it is impossible to have a two way discussion, which would be a much better, efficient and productive way of learning - rather than teacher pasively laying down the facts of the theory we need to know.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this is the standard pedagogy the world over, even here in America. I know I wouldn't have ever been able to learn as much as I learned at Unity had I gone to a bigger school with straight up blah lectures in front of hundreds of students. Thank goodness for Unity! It will be really interesting to see if the students warm up to your style or not.
ReplyDelete