I don't quite know how to explain what I am seeing in my classes with male students, particularly football players, when I employ a type of game in a class.
I am teaching my introductory art history survey course in a hybrid manner. The students access the content of the course online; they watch videos that are ably created and narrated by two art historians which can be found on smarthistory.org. The students then comment in discussion boards about what they read. The are also required to write papers and carry on reflections on their learning in journals in Blackboard. When we do meet F2F in the classroom, rather than lecturing or quizzing them, I have an active learning scenario planned.
We just finished the module on Greek art, and the active learning technique I employed in the F2F portion of our class was a debate/game mechanism on whether or not the Elgin/Parthenon marbles should be returned to Greece. I gave out roles via email. I had one day F2F in class where students mingled in character at a "party" at the Acropolis Museum. Then we had the debate.
The students that I expected to do well, did. But six of my male student-athletes in the class, who quite frankly have been fairly lackluster so far this semester, really stood out. Their speeches and their comments and questions hit it out of the park. Five of them happened to be football players. If you have been following my blog, you will know that this is becoming something of a theme.
What is it about changing the dynamic of the class that brings about those students who ordinarily fade as much as they can into the background (often, literally, sitting in the back of the room) suddenly rise up and are the stars of the class? I saw it again with this class activity.
I also had a colleague of mine run a focus group with the five football players from my fall 2015 semester of Roman art in order to start to gathering some data about what is happening in my classes, not just with Reacting, but with the other forms of active learning that I employ. I hope to post that information sometime soon.
But this short game in the introductory class provides another piece of evidence that changing it up, what I call "activizing" the classroom, can bring new students to the fore, and have them actively participate in class. They find their voices and they find their power for learning. If we can find a way to shake it up, I find students, some of whom, I would not expect to do so, will rise to the challenge.
