Instructions for Your Group Meeting

February 11

You will be meeting today in your editorial groups at a time and place of your choosing.  This is a class meeting like any other, except that only your editorial group will be present and you need not meet in our classroom.  You may meet in any reasonably quite place where you have enough privacy to carry on a discussion.  You should bring with you the Light book and all of your reflection papers and notes on the book.  Each of you will need to participate in the discussion and take notes on what you have decided. You should allow at least an hour and a half for your discussion.  If you try to cut it short, it will show in the results.

A.  Exchange and read your reflection papers on Light.  Discuss what you think are the most important ideas in the book (not just the last three chapters, but the entire book) and explain why they are important.  Light discusses ways in which students, teachers or advisers, and the college as a whole could improve the learning experience for students.  Identify what you think are the most promising ideas under each of these headings, and explain why they are promising.  The ideas you identify need not come from the book, but they may.  Give examples from your own experience or observations to support your claims.  Feel free to disagree with the author and to modify the suggestions he makes, but give your reasons when you do.  Whenever you refer to the text, give the page number in parentheses, whether you quote it directly or not.  Bring one copy of your reflection paper to your group meeting, and send a copy to me by e-mail.

Read all of the other reflection papers before you discuss them.  As you read them, take notes on what you think are interesting ideas from the papers.

B.  In this meeting, you will review the entire book.  After you have read each other's reflection papers, make a list of what you think are the best ideas for students, teachers or advisers, and the college as a whole to emerge from the reading and discussion for improving college education.  Discuss those suggestions and try to add to them and try to agree on two or three ideas in each category that you think are valuable.  Your goal in this discussion should be to discover some promising ideas, whether they come from the book or from elsewhere.   Summarize what you think are the most valuable ideas and explain why.  Your group should emerge from your discussion with what you think are the most promising ideas for improving the quality of learning in college.

C.  Review your conclusions to make sure that you all understand them in the same way.  There may, of course, be some points on which you don't agree.  That's fine.  Make a note of such disagreements or doubts.  Some of the points you discuss may lead to questions rather than answers.  That's fine.  Write down the questions.

D.  Before you leave, designate one person from your group to post your group's responses and a brief explanation of each--on the Discussion Board in Blackboard.  This response should be posted before the end of the day on Thursday.  Then each of you read and comment on all of the group postings, not just those from your group.

E.  After your meeting, each of you, individually, will send me an e-mail.  In that e-mail, tell me the following:

    1.  Where you met.

    2.  What time  you met--starting time and ending time.

    3.  Who was present at the meeting, by name.  Indicate if anyone arrived late or left early.

    4.  What was the single most interesting idea to emerge from the discussion, and why.

    4.  What did you think went well and what did you think could stand improvement in your group meeting.  

    5.  Overall, what did you think about the experience?

I need to get an e-mail response from everyone in your group, individually.  Do not send e-mail responses signed by more than one person.  Each of you needs to respond to the five questions above.

F.  Read the group summaries on the Discussion Board and discuss them further.  Comment on some of them.  Carry on an on-line discussion as you would in class.  Make arguments for and against the different ideas.  Everyone should read and comment on the postings at least once before the weekend, but continue to return to it and respond to new ideas.