TLC San Antonio

I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the Teaching and Learning conference in San Antonio, Texas. This conference is actually two events in one: One strand is for higher education and the other for business. Although these two disciplinary areas seem different, I found sessions in both areas that were beneficial to my academic practice. For example, use of the Socratic method in teaching the problem-solving and decision-making process was presented in the business strand, but I found it useful for one of the courses that I currently teach.

Essentially, that presentation proposed that students can be taught how to use the Socratic method to stimulate critical thinking and better decision-making in group situations. Students could use questions to:

• Ask an individual to provide instances or justifications for the position advocated
• Interject a counter-example in response to an individual’s position or point
• Ask whether anyone in the group agrees with the position advocated
• Suggest a parallel example
• Illuminate a specific concept or position using an analogy
• Play the role of devil’s advocate to an articulated position

In my own teaching experience, I have found that students sometimes feel frustrated when I (as the instructor) respond to their questions with more questions. I believe this is because students often want "just the answers" rather than having to think critically beyond the facts. Perhaps teaching them hows and whys of the Socratic method and actually having them implement it would motivate them to think more and be less resistant to questioning. I am looking forward to trying this out next semester.

Another session that I found useful was on Collaborative Learning. Specifically, it addressed the problems involved with group projects. The presenters offered the following suggestions for improving the group process:

• Give students specific group management role and responsibilities, such as manager, encourager, cheerleader, coach, question commander, checker, or taskmaster.
• Give each member of the team a different, interdependent research and problem-solving role. This can ensure that students work together rather than in parallel.
• The instructor needs to have input into how the groups are formed; sometimes best friends make poor group members.
• Low-ability students often benefit most when paired with medium-ability students rather than those of highest ability.
• Train students in interpersonal communication skills ahead of time so that they know what behavior is expected of the group and require discussion of group functioning, focusing on how students should talk and listen to each other.
• Consider assessment strategies carefully, looking for ways to reward the group while also emphasizing individual accountability. Avoid giving the entire group one grade.

Each semester, I teach a senior level research methods course that has a group project as a significant component. Effectiveness of the group process varies widely, as you can imagine. Some semesters, I have groups that function extremely well. Others can be experiences in great frustration. I have constantly looked for ways to improve the group process, and have resisted the temptation to eliminate the group aspect of the project. I sincerely believe that students should possess good groupwork skills by the time they graduate from a university. I have already implemented some of the techniques that were presented. For example, I have all group members submit a peer evaluation that helps me to find out who did what (and who did not do what). Part of a student's grade is based on her/his individual performance in the group. I found the concept of pairing low-ability students with medium-ability students (rather than high-ability) intriguing, and I now understand the rationale. Low-ability students often get lost when working with high-ability students, whereas medium-ability students motivate them to function at a higher level. Up to this point, I have let students choose their own groups, so I have had no control over how well the individuals are matched up. I will try to assign groups in the future based on the suggestions given and see what happens.

I attended several other sessions that provided useful information and tools for my teaching. Some, such as one on using PowerPoint games to develop vocabulary skills helped me to think of different ways to utilize familiar technology. Others, such as ones on leadership models and skills were useful for updating content in some of my courses.

I did make a presentation at the conference: "Knowledge about HIV/AIDS and resulting student behavior among students at an Historically Black College/University". It was well received, and fortunately, I was not asked any questions that I could not answer. The study looked at the level of of knowledge about HIV/AIDS among students, the differences in the accuracy of that knowledge by gener, and the relationship between knowledge and behavior. What we (myself and three other authors) found was that although students had a high level of knowledge (more accurate for women than for men), their behviors did not reflect that. Students practice high risk behaviors in spite of the fact that they know better. Our suggestions were to focus more on teaching about the consequences of high-risk behavior rather than just the factual information about the disease. We also felt that the role of the campus environment in encouraging high-risk behaviors needs to be investigated. We recommended that qualitative studies through focus goups be the preferred inquiry method for these investigations. I do not wish to delve further into the content of the study here, but if anyone is interested, you can contact me for more information.

Overall, this conference was a very worthwhile event, and I came back with much to think about and put into practice.

Himanshu