Teaching Methods

Organization

In a course such as this, the lecture method of teacher-centered expository discourse relegates students to the role of listeners who are not actively engaged in the learning process. Higher-level learning requires the student to become actively involved in applying concepts and methods to problems and to exercise critical judgment by attempting to reach a solution or draw conclusions when faced with a complex set of findings. These higher-level thinking skills will be continuously called upon in the cooperative learning classroom method, used throughout this course. 

Cooperative learning is an instructional technique that brings students together in small, fixed groups to work on structured learning tasks. It enables all students to become more involved with the course material and to articulate their understanding of this material through problem-solving exercises with other members of their group. Students "who become involved in active discussion of their ideas with other students are more likely to have less irrelevant or distracting thoughts and spend more time synthesizing and integrating concepts than students who listen to lectures" (Bligh DA. What's the Use of Lectures. Penguin Press, 1992). Student-to-student interaction is positively related to critical thinking outcomes and to study habits characterized by more active thinking and less rote memorization (Smith DG. College classroom interactions and critical thinking. J Educ Psych 1977;69:180-190.) 

Based on these pedagogical principles, this course has been organized such that: 
 

• All course materials are found on the Internet. 
• Students will be assigned to small learning groups, typically 8 to 10 students per group. These learning groups will meet in our "virtual" classroom on the Internet.
• Evaluation of student performance is based on: 
  • Completing course modules (Please check your schedule for dates.) 
  • Three group projects (Please check your schedule for dates.) 
  • There are two individual projects but no final exam in this course. (Please check your schedule for dates). 

REMEMBER: In most real-life problems, there is no one "right" answer but several different ways to address problems; some of these ways are more efficient, more constructive, and more long-lasting than others. An important lesson to learn from the experience of cooperative learning is that most solutions to community problems are more effective when the solution is reached by a team effort that actively engages all members of the team in addressing the problem and encourages creative thinking of the team in proposing a solution. This process converts learning from an individual to a social activity and draws on the collective wisdom of those attempting to reach a solution. 

Because of the independent nature of this class, teams must learn to function largely independently using the lecture materials and the experience and knowledge of team members as their major resource to engage in each exercise. The best professional teams know how to use the resources of consultants, the literature, and the wisdom of the team to arrive at their own solutions. The point is, the faculty and TAs are not going to give you answers, but they are there to steer you, as a consultant would, on a path toward reaching your own team answers.