This week’s readings cover a variety of topics, among which, I am particular interested in the topics of small group learning, simulations, and service learning.
Lang lists three reasons of teaching with small groups, which are: help the students learn the communication and interaction skills, students will learn more of what is taught and retain the knowledge longer, and it helps the students establish and promote a better understanding of knowledge and learning in general ( Lang, p.106-p.108). As I am teaching comm110, I tend to use the informal learning groups a lot. I agree that small group teaching can help the students retain the knowledge longer because they will remember the activities they have completed in class.
One topic I suggest to discuss is whether the heterogeneous grouping should be used or not during the small group learning? If it is used, how to engage the less smart kids into this learning? Lang suggests that heterogeneous grouping is more satisfactory than homogeneous ones, which means to group some higher level students and some lower level students together (Lang, p.112). When I was young, my instructor used this method to pair us up: a smart kid will help a less smart kid to learn. I found this method useful but not quite efficient. The problem is the less smart kids are usually reluctant to be helped by the so called smart kids because they think they have been insulted.
Lang has also provided some solutions regarding to the common problems in small group learning. He suggests that if one student in the group never participates, listen to the group’s discussion for a moment and ask the silent student’s thought about other’s opinions. If the student is too shy, ask him to be the recorder for the whole group (Lang, p.114-p.115). I have seen some of my students in the public speaking class being silent all the time. Maybe I should use Lang’s method to engage the silent students.
Davis brings up an interesting and fresh point of using the role playing, board games and computer games, virtual worlds to conduct the simulation among the students ( DeNeve and Heppner, 1997; McCarthy and Anderson, 2000; Hertel and Millis, 2002, p.229). I participated into the mock trial on the legal communication course as an undergraduate and found that the role playing can help me to apply what I have learned in a serious and practical way although it was time consuming. Davis says popular video games can be effective for learning because they have clear goals and rely on problem-solving skills (Gee, 2007; Van Eck, 2006, p.231). I would like the class to discuss how to incorporate the most popular mini games nowadays, such as The Angry Birds and The Plants vs. Zombies into the simulation in any particular classes?
Davis discusses about the service learning and civic engagement in chapter 26, which I find interesting because I participated some service learning when I was taking the intercultural communication course. I chose to go to a retirement house to be as a volunteer for the seniors and this became one of my valuable experiences. Davis says it is good to require students reflect continually and critically on what they have learned during the service learning, such as, to keep a log or journal to record daily activities (Lang, p.238). This contributes to my second topic I want the class to discuss: how to let the students reflect efficiently during the service learning? If the students record a bunch of crap in the log or journals, how to move them onto the right track?
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