Blog 2: Teaching artifact

Hi everyone! I am planning to revise an existing assignment for my PSY 4181 (Advanced Organizational Psychology) course. The assignment is a “class facilitation” which requires students to pair up in teams of 2-3 (depending on the class size) and to lead the class discussion for the week. The goal is for the team to act as the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the week by presenting the major themes in the readings to the class and integrating. I have emphasized to students that the goal for this assignment is for them to also identify current trends on the topic they are assigned and integrating them into their presentation. The point of this assignment is not to summarize everything in the readings (that’s what my lectures). Instead I tell them to really focus on the “bigger picture.”

Currently, I feel that the assignment is quite vague from a student’s perspective. I’m struggling with findings the balance of how much guidance I should be providing because I don’t want to limit student’s creativity by providing them with strict parameters. While at the same time I don’t want to overwhelm them by providing vague instructions.

I would like to change the assignment by providing more instructions to students. This could be done by providing a structured rubric for students to show examples of the items I will be looking for in their presentation. If possible, I think it would also be nice to incorporate the use of some new tool for students such Blogs@Baruch or the Vlog tool. I also want to incorporate feedback from their peers into the assignment as well, so I’d like to develop a way or system for their peers to give constructive feedback for each presentation. I would imagine this would require a) the use of Qualtrics or some other platform to streamline the process, and b) giving students a “mini-training” on how to provide effective feedback.

If anyone does anything similar for their course or has any additional ideas, I would love to hear them!

Directions for the teaching artifact as currently stated on the syllabus:

For each week, 2 students (possibly 3) will be responsible for presenting the relevant pre-assigned readings, presenting the class with discussion questions, and leading these discussions. This should be an integrated 30-minute presentation that presents an overview of the major themes for the week. In other words, you will act as the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the particular topic of that week. Your role is to present the “big picture” emerging from the assigned readings, not present on every single detail. Successful presentations will use the following strategies:

• Present the topic in a formal way using PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.
• Engage in active learning instructional strategies that emphasize audience engagement (quick activity, asking broad questions that stimulate class discussion, etc.)
• Gather from sources outside of the assigned readings.
  • External scholarly articles.
  • Information from contemporary mainstream media (e.g., a clip from a news outlet) related to your topic.
  • Case studies related to your topic from real-world organizations.
• Multiple types of media (e.g., videos, handouts, etc.)

In your presentation you should focus on major themes, arguments, contradictions, practical challenges, etc. However, please feel free to be as CREATIVE as possible while also providing the class with the “big picture.”  Presentations must be submitted via Blackboard in advance of your presentation by only one member.