1. “To do all the talking and not be willing to listen is a form of greed,”-- Democritus of Abderu, Greece, circa 5th-4th century BC. A good discussion fosters good listening habits in everyone, including the professor.
2. Identify why students may listen poorly.
3. Identify how can you create an active and engaged listener:
- Learn to present well, considering overall content and delivery.
- Leave time for key ideas to sink in, by rephrasing or revisiting them.
- Provide aids.
- Assign “minute papers.”
- Pace your lecture / speech with discussions.
Be aware of all the obstacles and challenges to this:
(a) Discussions and peer pressure can be threatening, and talking may be “uncool.”
(b) Discussion is more time consuming.
(c) It takes more forethought.
(d) You have less control on the substance and quality. You have to be flexible; you may have to alter your lecture based on the discussion.
Consider how you can best act as facilitator:
(a) Be prepared for discussion: think of your directed opening question and always use a shared knowledge base (from a shared reading, screening, experience).
(b) Have students submit this before class (emailed screening notes in my “PoCo” class).
(b) Listen and don’t fixate on your point.
(c) Observe who is responding and who isn’t; observe body language.
(d) Post and verify: put on a board what people are saying; rephrase their point to make sure you and everyone else is getting it; ask them to clarify if obscure or unclear.
(e) Do not trust silence as consensus but test it. State the problem from the opposing point and see if anyone agrees.
(f) Be comfortable with silences, but be willing to rephrase your question or ask it from different perspectives.
(f) Test your student’s listening accuracy.
(g) Ask students to support their opinions (discussions can end with a “yes” and “no”).
(h) Deal with conflicts and do not ignore them.
(i) Challenge your students but do not threaten them. (e.g, instead of telling someone they are totally wrong, ask them to test how their argument or view reconciles with something else they may have said previously, or that someone else may have said, or they may have read. Assist them in critiquing their own position).
(j) Do not single out one student; throw controversial issues back to the students rather than aligning yourself from the beginning as opposed to or in favor of one student’s point of view. If someone takes up all the class time, find a way of drawing that to their attention inoffensively; if they are offensive, deal with it at that moment by restating their point and allowing the class to address it, plus speaking to them after class. Do not generalize from one student’s opinion to everyone’s opinions.
(k) Always summarize and synopsize the discussion, and refer to student comments as and when they become relevant over the course of the class.
Acknowledgements: This handout combines my personal experience with points from Northwestern University’s Faculty Development Program as well as Idea Papers from the Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development, Kansas State University.
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