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6916:2020:seminar_leadership_roles [2020/02/11 23:04] – external edit 127.0.0.16916:2020:seminar_leadership_roles [2021/02/09 00:01] (current) – Ryan Schram (admin)
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-We often face a problem in seminar discussions. Students are supposed to drive the agenda, but if students don’t prepare, or want to avoid participating (because they are shy, worried, or lack confidence, etc.) then the discussion is driven by the instructor, and becomes a ping-pong game of question-and-answer, if not a lecture. This problem led Marshall Sahlins to adopt “the Melbourne method” of seminar discussion, which ironically he implemented in graduate seminars at Chicago, and as far as anyone knows has never been utilized at Melbourne (Sahlins 2009, 305). It has been used for many years at the University of Chicago in graduate seminars. In the so-called Melbourne method, groups of students in the seminar take turns leading the discussion while other groups are assigned other roles to support the leaders and help the discussion work through questions and issues productively.+We often face a problem in seminar discussions. Students are supposed to drive the agenda, but participating in a class as a peer is new for a lot of students, so they need something to help them develop this new way of being a student. When students aren't sure how to prepare for and make contributions to class discussion, then the class risks turning into a game of ping-pong question-and-answer, or even a lecture. This problem led Marshall Sahlins to adopt “the Melbourne method” of seminar discussion, which ironically he implemented in graduate seminars at Chicago, and as far as anyone knows has never been utilized at Melbourne (Sahlins 2009, 305). It has been used for many years at the University of Chicago in graduate seminars. In the so-called Melbourne method, groups of students in the seminar take turns leading the discussion while other groups are assigned other roles to support the leaders and help the discussion work through questions and issues productively.
  
 Likewise, to learn how to work in a group of peers, and to avoid having our classes devolve into lectures by Ryan, one of your assignments is to prepare a specific kind of contribution each week and play a specific role in the class. Last year, Terry Woronov and I modified Sahlins’s adopted method for use in //[[http://sydney.edu.au/units/ANTH3602|ANTH 3602: Reading ethnography]]//, and it went very well. Students really liked the idea of taking charge of the class each week, and performed their roles enthusiastically. For this class, we will use the Woronov-Schram method of seminar leadership again. Everyone in class will be assigned to a small group of five or six people. Each week, your group will be assigned to take on a specific role in leading the class discussion, and these roles will rotate among the groups. The leadership roles are: Likewise, to learn how to work in a group of peers, and to avoid having our classes devolve into lectures by Ryan, one of your assignments is to prepare a specific kind of contribution each week and play a specific role in the class. Last year, Terry Woronov and I modified Sahlins’s adopted method for use in //[[http://sydney.edu.au/units/ANTH3602|ANTH 3602: Reading ethnography]]//, and it went very well. Students really liked the idea of taking charge of the class each week, and performed their roles enthusiastically. For this class, we will use the Woronov-Schram method of seminar leadership again. Everyone in class will be assigned to a small group of five or six people. Each week, your group will be assigned to take on a specific role in leading the class discussion, and these roles will rotate among the groups. The leadership roles are:
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 Your group does not have to prepare anything together, but you can if you want. This is not a group assignment; everyone will be individually graded on whether or not they fulfilled their assigned role. Your group does not have to prepare anything together, but you can if you want. This is not a group assignment; everyone will be individually graded on whether or not they fulfilled their assigned role.
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 +## Reference
  
 Sahlins, Marshall. 2009. “My Real-Magical Year with Greg Dening.” //The Contemporary Pacific// 21 (2): 304–5. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23724853. Sahlins, Marshall. 2009. “My Real-Magical Year with Greg Dening.” //The Contemporary Pacific// 21 (2): 304–5. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23724853.
6916/2020/seminar_leadership_roles.1581491073.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/02/11 23:04 by 127.0.0.1