Use Active Learning for Your Group's Time in Class

PLEASE NOTE: The week your group is responsible for presenting on Thursday, you and your group members are only responsible for READING the Conformity & Conflict chapter HOWEVER you are not REQUIRED to write any response. You are welcome to comment on it but are not required to do so. My apologies to past groups for not stating this earlier.

The presentations so far have been great. Now I'd like to encourage different kinds of learning environments. The group presentations are also an opportunity to create an active learning environment -- that's where students are not lectured to but actuall create and contribute to what's learned from their own participation. Instead of presenting ideas and videos, you can use a video or facts/statistics to poll other students' thinking or beliefs. It's sort of like moment of participant-observation where the group operates as the scientists polling the emic views of the other students.

Previously I posted guidelines to inspire ideas for your group presentation. I requested it be 15-20 mins. I will allow you up to 20-25 minutes from now on. Please be mindful of that limitation (prepare + practice and time yourselves). Check out the previous posts on group presentations.

ACTIVE TRAINING/LEARNING STRATEGIES
Did any of you see the film FREEDOM WRITERS? In it Hilary Swank's character, a first-time teacher in a "war-zone" urban school abandons traditional teaching practices to get the students more involved in caring about their education. Your group presentations might abandon the traditional method of "presenting" ideas by having the rest of the students actively generate their emic views about religion, race/ethnicity, and the world economic system during your 20-25 mins.

Have the class do a "Take a stand exercise" (polling them on current immigration policy or the history of racial stratification. Do a "campfire" sharing session where groups of 3-4 students share a story/myth that reflects a core value in their religion/faith. Then have the groups discuss the stories they heard from an etic/anthropological perspective: what generalities or universals were shared in the stories; what is it that humans in each culture are striving for and why is there so much conflict between religions given the core values? You are welcome to steal or borrow any of these ideas. Strategies for active learning (rather than just listening) are much more fun and the group does much less work in the end.

Here are great resources for active learning strategies, do your own search on Google, or think of a great example from a film, a book you read, or from a favorite class you took before. I personally love the first one on trading spaces using post it notes.

1. http://www.activetraining.com/active_learning/tool_trading_places.htm
   
2. http://www.activetraining.com/active_learning/WeaveCourseContent.pdf
3. http://www.cat.ilstu.edu/additional/tips/actEngage.php
4. Also check out TEACHERTUBE for great resources and videos