Date:         Sun, 17 Nov 96 06:51:13 EST
From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Organization: Central Michigan University
Subject:      The Great Flying Chaos Teaching Circus
To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY <SOCGRAD@CSF.COLORADO.EDU>
Message-Id:   <961117.082201.EST.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
What follows is Part II of a three part series on teaching and learning.
It is brought to you by the good offices of the managers of the Socgrad
Network, the good faculty at Central Michigan University and by the
Red Feather Institute for Advanced Studies in Sociology.   Enjoy.
                                 ************

In 1992, I was invited to visit Virginia Tech and teach Intro Sociology.
I was delighted but the size of the Class gave me pause.  There were
580 students enrolled.  Over the past 25 years, I had declined to teach
any class larger than my memory for names and abilities...small classes
as you might well surmise.

But I really wanted to teach at VT; so I said, Yes...and set about
creating a syllabus by which each of 580 students could have signif-
icant control over the learning process and in which each of 580
students could take a different pathway through the knowledge process.

I knew that, in most large classes, there was one and only one, highly
regimented, pathway through the course.  All students must alone, sit,
take notes, take exams; pass and fail on the point of their pen.  The
Chair of the Sociology Department, a wonderful colleague and fine
scholar in her own right, Cornelia Flora, promised me five graduate
students....mmmmmh.  With five grad students, I could start a university.

Yes, I can.               *******************

                    The Great Flying Chaos Learning Circus

The heart of the Syllabus is a point menu.  I gave each student 200
points and told them that they must spend 100 points on the mid-term;
they could spend the other 100 points of the final exam or they could
spend it on the Point Menu...which follows.

It did not take the students long to figure out that, if they chose
to spend their points on the menu, they would not have to take the
final...it did not take me long to figure that such a thing would be
a powerful motive for students to create their own pathway through the
learning circus at hand.

There was one other feature of the point menu that served to 'guide'
their choices...they could spend 20 points on some menu items and earn
up to 25 points....depending on difficulty of the menu item itself.
There was no profit to be had in taking pen and pencil exams...in this
or any other syllabus.

THE POINT MENU:

A. The Mid-term.  100 T-F; Multiple Choice questions; machine scored.
B. The Final.  100 Multiply Choice arranged in blocks of ten; each
               set of which sampled items from the lectures in both
               the first and second halves of the lectures.

               Note: a student with 20 points left at the end of the
               term could take the first and only the first 20 items
               on the Final in order to 'spend' the last of her/his
               points.

C. FIELD ASSSIGMENTS: Price: 20 pts.  Rewards: up to 25 pts.  These
         assigments were action research based upon supplementary
         readings...all of which were in the Reader which was companion
         to the text.  Since they required both a research design on
         part of the student as well as the research and a scholarly
         report.  Limit of two to a customer.

D.  MOVIE LABS.  Price: 20 pts.  Reward: up to 25 points.  Movie labs
        involved the completion of a worksheet containing 20 questions
        about the movie of the day.  The questions covered basic terms
        in Intro Sociology from the chapters covered so far in the
        lectures.

        Each Movie Lab was scheduled for 5-7 pm on a Thursday...a time
        when most students were free.  There was a sign-up sheet which
        limited the lab to 60 students; the number of seats in the lab.
        There were very popular; more about them later.

E.  SPECIAL PROJECTS:  Price: 20 Points.  Rewards:  Up to 25 points.

    Students could design special assignments in groups up to five.
    Topic and means were open but were negotiated with the professor.
    Each Team had to give a one-page outline of what they meant to
    do and who would do what.  Examples of Special Projects included
    a Video documentary of student culture on and off campus by three
    Black Students...a fine job.  A Chemistry Student organized a
    reading/discussion group for a book, Ishmael.  Another Student
    organized her own Learning Circus and wrote assignments for the
    four students who worked with her...turned out well, indeed.

E.  SECRET ASSIGNMENTS.  Price: 10 Pts.  Reward: 10 pts.  I invited
    five students...at various times over the semester to be a secret
    agent and to incite revolution in some lecture; racism, gender
    politics, class relations, ethnic superiority or some such.  It
    was not hard to find volunteers...some enjoyed it a bit too much.

F.  SOAP OPERAS.  Price 10 pts. for Producer/Director. Reward: 15 pts.
    There were six soaps running throughout the semester.  Each P-D
    had 10 minutes at the beginning of the class to 'present' the
    latest exciting episode of the Soap on which they worked.

    Each P-D could choose up to five actors for each Soap.  They
    earned 5 and only 5 points for acting.

    SOAPS:  There were five; for each Soap, there was a one-page
    hand-out giving general guidence to the P-D.  They included:
    1.  Captain Science!  He is smarter than you are!  He has a Ph.D.
        in.....SOCIOLOGY!!!  Captain Science used at least three
        concepts from the chapter on which we were working to solve
        some pressing social problem for those who did not know any-
        thing about SOCIOOOOLLLOOOOGGGGIIIIEEEE!

    2.  Saved by the Bell.  A Soap oriented to the alienating conditions
        of MASS EDUCATION.  Little episodes using three concepts from
        any chapter on the idiocies and frustrations of learning in
        a large university somewhere in the border states of the USA.

    3.  Fun with Dick and Jane: A Soap oriented to gender relations,
        coming of age and the emerging moral dilemmas of young people.

    4.  Bev and Jack: The Story of a young married couple, both in
        college and trying to work out the gender politics involved
        in juggling work, classes, child-care and romance all at the
        same time.

LEARNING ATTRACTORS. There were five Learning Circles in the class of
about 100 students each.  There was a GTA for each.  The Circles were:
     A.  Point Attractors:  This Attractor/Circle was composed of very
         compulsive students.  Typically, they are high achievers; take
         very good notes; graduated in the top 5% of their class and
         have no time for outside assignments, movie labs or other such
         distractions.  They want to study the text, take the tests and
         be done with Sociology so they can get on with their science
         courses.  Seats in the front of the class were reserved for them.

     B.  The Torus Attractor: This circle contained students who were
         willing to venture out a bit...they took the mid-term and most
         of the Final.  They did choose a movie lab or two but did not
         do anything much on their own.

     C.  The BUTTERFLY ATTRACTOR.  This Attractor had two Wings:

         C-1: The Right Wing.  This Wing was made up of very Conserv-
         ative students who had very conservative views on politics,
         economics, religion and life style.  They were the solid
         core of the class and could be relied upon for good solid
         work and strong presentations in opposition to...
         C-2: The Left Wing.  This Learning Attractor was made up of
         very creative, very verbal, very liberal students.  They
         typically ran the extra-curricula life in high school.  They
         could have graduated in the top 5% of their class but were
         too busy on the school newspaper, the school play, music
         or other pursuits.

    Both the Right and the Left Wing of this Learning Attractor
are self-organizing and present episodes in the Soaps and organize
Special Projects which fit their politics/Life Style.

     D.  The Liberal Middle.  These are students who have no special
politics.  They are very nice; very innocent and open to new ideas but
don't want to venture out too far until they are more certain of their
own minds.  They listen to both the Right and the Left and sometimes
work on Soaps/Projects with one or the other but most of the time, they
just sit and watch and learn.

Each Student had to fill out a 'game plan' which could be modified with
approval of the GTA.  Each GTA chose the Attractor with which they
worked.  Grad Students were super-exploited with this syllabus since it
took a lot of labor intensive work to work out game plans, help design
special projects, grade them and spend time with the professor each
Monday morning going over the schedule for the week.  But GTA's were
rewarded; each got teaching credit; a Letter of Reference; a Publication
in which they were credited as co-author.  The article appeared in the
Wisconsin Sociologist (now Sociological Imagination).   And the five
Grad Students had the rare privilege of working with me...as well as
credit for this mini-lecture:
    ANNA ZAJICEK was Senior Author and Associate Instructure in GFCLC.
         Anna is now Assistant Prof at UArkansas.  She is from Poland.
    RUAN HOE was GTA for the Left Wing.  He is from Communist China.
    TIM WOLFE was GTA for the Right Wing.  A very large male and former
        Football player, Tim was very popular with the Right Wing.
        A fine colleague, Tim found Sociology a bit too liberal and
        changed majors.
    ANDREW PHILARETOU was Mentor/GTA for the Liberal Middle.  Andy
        was from Greece and well-liked by the young women in the class.
        He had a lot of class...and was very good-looking.
    JENNIFER SULT was/is a very bright young woman.  She was GTA for
        both the Point Attractor and the Torus people since they
        required less time and attention...they mostly took tests.

I see I have run out of space.  I will present a third mini-lecture on
the movie labs next week.  I do want to say that creating and using the
GREAT FLYING CHAOS LEARNING CIRCUS was both a challenge and an Adventure.

We were invited to repeat it at VT but the Dean would not give the GTA's
more teaching credit than 1/2 GTA for the course so I declined to offer
it  again at VT...I have used it elsewhere: at UMich, at Texas Woman's
University and, next semester, scaled down versions of it for my
classes at UVermont.  All in all, it was great fun for me and I made
friends with under-grads in a super large course with whom I am still
in touch via the Internet...and letters...Eric Frost, Saeed Richardson,
JJ Thomas, and my all ti favavorite undergrad studentJoanne Glago
who became Co-author and Research Assistant for me the next semester.

You can see why I...
                                    Gladly lerne and gladly teche,
                                                                    TR