Does anyone else find that the well-meaning trend in seminar of “first question from a student” tends not to succeed?
My proposal: THIRD question must be from a student.
Students usually need time to process the talk and build up the courage/conviction to ask it. And once faculty get the ball rolling it feels easier to raise your hand. I think it’s on hosts to check the vibe partway through and explicitly ask for students to talk, but at the start never seems to work well.
@askennard @JoseEdGomes I 've liked the spirit of the system at my current uni, where the format is: "as always, we'll pause 30s so you can chat to your neighbour, and then we'll take questions with first from students."
The 30s pause is nice. It gives a chance for ideas to formalize, and maybe boost student confidence to ask that question if they ask their neighbour and their neighbour is like "oh... huh yeah I dunno. You should ask."
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@JoseEdGomes I know I personally am more likely to ask a question if I get a chance to nudge my neighbour and say "hey... am I crazy, or [this]?"
In the end, students don't really ask much still, but at least it helps.
@MarkHanson @JoseEdGomes this is a fantastic idea! I’m going to try to suggest it to folks in my dept.
Who would have thought that techniques for effective teaching would work in a seminar???
Andrew Kennard
MAHanson
Ko-Fan Chen 陳克帆
Ben Longdon
JEG