This semester I am teaching a project-based class that has almost no formal instruction by the professor. Instead of providing close direction, I am attempting to give the students more autonomy and control over their learning and the things they will get out of the class. This presents a number of difficulties, and I plan to discuss them as the semester proceeds. Today, I’d like to say something about student-run class sessions, which will happen for the first time in my class next week.
In planning for these class sessions, I’ve attempted to make it easy for students to provide good objectives and learning opportunities for each other. Students have about 8 minutes for their presentations, and they are required to introduce some technical component, and then provide at least one good example of how that component might be used for their project or another project within the scope of the class. 8 minutes is a very short time to get through so much technical detail, but my hope is that they will learn how to distill the valuable information they gain into bite-sized chunks that are easy for others to digest and reuse. During these student-run presentations, I plan to keep things on track by recommending they continue on topic and get through both the introduction to the component and a concrete example.