IF YOU WANT TO:
Drawing upon the diverse backgrounds and experiences of your students to introduce different points of view.
At the beginning of the term, a professor of business administration asks students to provide written answers to a series of questions about their backgrounds and reasons for taking the course. The questions cover topics such as: students' work experience, term papers of research projects, voluntary activities, personal experiences, and extracurricular interests. He asks students to focus particularly on any experiences which might give them a particular viewpoint on social, political, and economic issues to be covered in the course.
In conjunction with a seating chart he calls on students whose prior experiences or interests may be relevant to a given topic under discussion. In this way a full range of views is introduced in the course. "Often, with little or no effort, I am able to get students debating between themselves. In fact, I rarely give my own point of view until there has been a full discussion of the different points of view within the class itself."
This technique has additional advantages: the introduction of personal experiences and opinions tends to make the class livelier; and the instructor is given a method for learning at least some of the students' names by attaching students to their backgrounds, experiences and personalities.
Limitations on Use of Suggestion
Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California