P324 Spring 1999 Reading Interpretation & Discussion Guidelines

Living in a Social World
Psy 324: Advanced Social Psychology

Readings Interpretation & Discussion Guidelines

1. The goal of the readings discussion team project is to give you experience in helping others comprehend complex material, integrate it with past knowledge, and apply it to personal and social contexts.

2. Note that your team assignment is not to give a lecture or to make a presentation. Instead, the team should lead a discussion of the material so that as many students in the class as possible participate. In order to do this, it may be necessary to present information in summary or outline form, but this should be done as a way to organize and direction the discussion, not at as end in itself.

3. Your team should read the assigned material and then get together to decide what major points you will focus on, and what techniques and strategies you will use to stimulate and guide the discussion. Make sure that all members of the team are involved in this process, and in the class session itself. Your goals should specifically include not only fostering understanding of the assigned chapter and additional readings by themselves, but also how the readings relate to the chapter and to each other.

4. Egon and Jamonn will help you in planning your session, and will give you tips on how to guide the discussion. In addition, they can assist you in preparing overheads or handouts for the class.

5. Evaluation of your team’s performance will be based on (a) the extent to which all team members seem to be involved, (b) the aptness and rigor of the points you attempt to bring out the discussion, (c) the reasonableness of your strategies to foster comprehension, integration, and application of the material.

6. Shortly after the class session I will ask you to evaluate the contribution of your team members to the project. Once I have the evaluations from all team members, I will email you with a narrative assessment of the strengths and weakness of your performance, as well as your individual summary grades for the project. Important: No one in the group can receive a grade until the evaluations from all members are received.

Social Psychology / Miami University (Ohio USA). Last revised: . This document has been accessed times since 1 Jan 1999. Comments & Questions to R. Sherman