April 7, 2021 Avoiding Distractions Dr. Reginald Whitcomb was a former Nasa engineer at NASA who was asked to teach a class on design thinking to a cross section of students on campus. His course...
March 31, 2021 The Art of Facilitation and Collaboration Diane Vest was asked to teach a student-centered class where students would learn how to facilitate discussions as well as become effective collaborators in their small-group discussions. To prepare for...
March 24, 2021 Good Words It was the 21st century equivalent of a debate competition. The focus, however, was not on a winning argument but on creative innovation--developing viable possibilities for an emerging national issue....
March 10, 2021 Types and Sequencing of Discussion Questions Professor Jens Sigmund had used class discussions in is courses for years. He noticed that the way he framed questions had a major impact on the success of the discussions....
February 3, 2021 Cascaded Note-Taking Dr. Jimenez was frustrated as he read the discussion summaries from his students. One student from each discussion team served as a facilitator. The facilitators took notes on a flip...
January 27, 2021 When the Dream Team Isn’t They called themselves "the dream team." Every team member had a high GPA and a dominant personality. They were used to excelling in everything they did. But the dream team wasn’t,...
January 5, 2021 Overcoming Preconceived Ideas Introducing a human dimension to engage with complexity Taylor Mathis was a trained facilitator who had earned a reputation for helping organizations think through very tough issues. His approach was to...
December 23, 2020 Facilitation Styles Hot and Cool Facilitation Styles It was a crazy day in Professor Anita Waldman’s class. One discussion group, which she called the “Brady Bunch,” was really riled up. Normally this group...
October 21, 2020 Discussion Sensitivity How can we help students to be sensitive to contrasting perspectives? Dr. Jerry Watson was disturbed when one of his students walked out of his Moral Issues class. It was during...
