WHEN FLIPPING through the Course Offering Directory, there is one letter many students seek to avoid: F. Although it is popular to arrange one's schedule to eliminate Friday classes, many students also shy away from classes with the "Begin Dependent Courses" tag.
In large lecture classes throughout most departments in the College, discussion sections provide a supplement to lecture, better individual student attention, and a helpful way for professors, graders and students alike to stay organized. Students have discussions in order to learn from one another, while the teaching assistant takes the back seat. Although this scenario sounds good in theory, it rarely pans out in practice. In reality, discussion sections often center around only a few students and lack the diversity of viewpoints that twenty students can bring to a discussion. As we approach the middle of the semester, TAs and their students should reexamine their respective roles to make sure that no one wastes their time.
Part of the problem with managing a group of people is learning to balance conflicting personalities. In any discussion section, almost every student takes on a specific role. There's the person who repeats everything the professor says, the person who agrees with everyone, the person who disagrees with everyone just for the sake of disagreeing. There is without fail the person who talks too much, the person who never talks because he knows nothing, and on the flip side the intellectual snob who doesn't talk because he doesn't want to lower himself to the level of the rest of the class. There are the apparent slackers: the person who always has her head propped up by her hand, the person who clearly never reads the material, and, of course, the person who never comes to class. If an actual discussion begins, there is the person who phrases everything as a question and the person who constantly is quoting other authors or works.
And don't forget about the person who always is drinking a Diet Coke.
With all these players to cope with, teaching assistants may find themselves looking for someone to provide the group with balance. If the teacher is lucky, there may be one student in each class to serve as the insightful student leader. Rather than hoping this student magically will appear, discussion leaders should adapt their practices to help more students fall into this desirable category.
Although most undergraduates cannot speak from experience as TAs, most can point to effective strategies previous TAs employed. By looking at such strategies early in the semester, hopefully students and TAs can work toward improving any problems now rather than complaining about wasted time at the end of the semester.
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The ultimate problem in many discussion sections is that participation is weighted heavily, forcing students and teachers to be hyper-aware of everyone's participation. Some students speak just for the sake of getting the full 25 percent of their participation grade. Additionally, some teachers spend much energy keeping track of how often each student makes a comment. Although it is unreasonable to ask that participation grades be eliminated from discussion sections, it is fair to expect TAs to spend time in the first week of class explaining what participation means to them, and possibly continuing this dialogue over the semester. If students are to be graded on something as subjective as commenting, it is not asking too much that they be informed as to how the process works.
All too often the person who talks too much inadvertently speaks for more than her fair share of class because she also is the person who formulates thoughts the fastest. When teachers look for instant answers, fewer students get a chance to share in meaningful discussion.
Don't be afraid of silence. Let students actually think. Don't always call on the first people to raise their hands, because these likely will be the same few students each time.
The best TA I've had started each class with a fairly open-ended question that each student responded to on his own paper. After a few minutes, the question was up for discussion. There was no pressure and ample time for formulating thoughts. Genuinely beneficial dialogue arose because the question prompted many other ideas. Although this method may not work in each class, coming up with practices that follow these principles can only help.
Discussion sections are not going away. Participation grades likely are to stay as well. Improving the discussion section environment begins with awareness, hopefully resulting in less of the person-who-never-talks variety and more of the insightful-student-leader types. No matter what, though, you can keep your can of Diet Coke.
(Stephanie Batten's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at sbatten@cavalierdaily.com.)
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