Hello, again,
When Mike Siegel first established the Teaching Breakfast, one of the objectives was for TB members to exchange useful ideas about teaching.  By exchanging such ideas, members of the group were able to improve their own teaching.

Walter vom Saal was a frequent contributor of good teaching ideas so I'm not surprised to see his helpful offering of rules we might adopt for student-to-student interaction.

Years ago, Caroline Haessig gave me, at my request, some excellent rules she had formulated for student membership in class groups.
In the spirit of Walter's sharing of good ideas, I offer you a copy of Caroline's rules.  They've worked very well for me.
Thanks to all.
Janet


Dr. J. Nepkie
SUNY Distinguished Service Professor
Professor of Music and Music Industry
Music Department
State University of New York College at Oneonta
Oneonta, New York 13820
Ph. (607) 436 3425
Fax 607 436 2718
[log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: Teaching Breakfast List on behalf of Walter vom Saal
Sent: Fri 5/1/2009 8:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: civil discourse
 
Hi everyone -

 

I have been enjoying following this discussion on email.

 

Although it may be only indirectly related to much of the discussion, some
of you may be interested in something I did some time ago related to
student-student interaction.  Students were working in small groups in one
of my classes and some of the groups were having internal problems.  I
arranged a class discussion of "guidelines for group behavior" and the TA
wrote up a set of guidelines based on that discussion.  In subsequent
classes, when groups started working I required each group to look at and
discuss those guidelines.  As a psychology class, it was particularly
appropriate to focus on group process and ask the students to (a) discuss
their ideal group process in advance, and (b) have the courage to raise the
topic for discussion again if anyone in the group felt it needed to be
discussed.  

 

The guidelines are at
http://employees.oneonta.edu/vomsaaw/w/handouts_general/GroupWorkGuidelines.
htm

They also can be found by searching in Google for "Walter vom Saal
handouts."

 

Walter vom Saal