More Discussion—Less Lecture
June-July, 2007
“Although many of us would like to get beyond lecturing,
we often lack concrete strategies for doing so, particularly in our
larger classes.” (p. 236) David Yamane, who teaches sociology courses
enrolling around 60 students, reports on a strategy he uses that has
allowed him to reduce the amount of time he lectures from 80 percent to
something a bit less than 30 percent. He has created and posts on the
course Web page various course preparation assignments (CAPs).
Successful discussion in class depends on students having read and
thought about course material before they arrive in class. CAPs are the
vehicle Yamane uses to get students engaged with course material before
class.
Here’s how CAPs work. Students read and think about a chapter or some
other part of the textbook, and then they respond in writing using the
same CAP format each time they prepare one of these assignments. Each
CAP begins with an introductory statement, followed by an objective for
the assignment, some relevant background information, and then the
writing assignment that students complete. There’s a sample CAP included
in an appendix at the end of the article. It’s about racial inequality.
After reading and reviewing information on the CAP, students are
instructed to generate five testable hypotheses that they believe might
account for a specified set of income differences.
Students arrive in class with the CAP completed. Yamane might have them
start the discussion in small groups where students pool and integrate
their answers. Groups might then report one of their findings to the
whole class. Often their analysis is superficial or flawed. Yamane then
presents more explanatory material and sends students back their group
to incorporate and respond to this new information. To prevent CAP
discussions from becoming stale, Yamane regularly changes the routine.
Some days students may role-play; other days they may debate different
sides or “interrogate” each other’s proposals.
Yamane believes that the success of this strategy depends on careful
construction of the CAPs. He points out that discussion often falters
because students don’t see the point. That’s why objectives are an
important part of the CAP itself and become an emphasis of the in-class
discussion. Another key to success is the questions asked on the CAP.
They need to be authentic—questions without prespecified answers and
questions that allow students to offer opinions, points of view, or
information. “An authentic question has an indeterminate number of
‘right’ or acceptable answers.” (p. 240)
How does Yamane “motivate” students to complete the CAPs? If they don’t
attend class, they get no credit for completing a CAP. If they are in
class, CAPs are graded on a credit/no credit basis. The size of the
class rules out close grading. “I simply try to ensure that students
have made some serious effort to complete the assignments.” (p. 241)
Before starting to deduct credit, Yamane gives students a warning. In
one class of 60, students completed 18 CAPs and he gave only five
written warnings. The warning was enough to move the quality of
students’ work up to an acceptable level in all cases.
Yamane used a variety of different assessment methods to ascertain the
effectiveness of this move away from lectures to discussion. He compared
the discussion course with the same course taught by him in the more
traditional way. He found some intriguing differences. For example, a
bit over 50 percent of the students in the lecture course thought the
responsibility for class being successful on a daily basis was primarily
the professor’s. In the discussion course 75 percent thought the
responsibility was divided evenly between the professor and students. In
the lecture course just about 53 percent strongly agreed or agreed that
hearing the views of other students was an important part of the course.
That percentage jumped to almost 87 in the discussion course. And 88
percent in the discussion course agreed or strongly agreed that they
benefited from hearing the views and experiences of other students in
the class. About 56 percent of students in the lecture class reported
the same benefit.
Of special note was the effectiveness of the CAPs in increasing the
amount of study time students reported devoting to the class. In the
lecture class students on average reported spending 3.8 hours studying.
In the discussion class the mean was 5.3 hours. And perhaps of most
concern to faculty—What kind of effect did use of the CAPs have on exam
performance? The average score on the first exam was 6 percent higher in
the discussion section. It was 11 percent higher on the second exam.
Yamane writes in the conclusion, “These assignments have been a great
success in my courses, allowing me to foster student engagement by
spending the majority of class time coordinating, facilitating, and
leading discussions, rather than constantly lecturing at students.” (p.
246) He notes that he has used the strategy in undergraduate general
education courses with enrollments of up to 85 students.
Reference: Yamane, D. (2006). Course preparation assignments: A
strategy for creating discussion-based courses. Teaching Sociology,
36 (July), 236–248.
Copyright © 2007 Magna Publications. Reproduction in whole or in part
without permission is prohibited.
