Tools for implementing the technique
Legitimization of Differences
WHAT IS THIS?
Following are a series of videos, animations, and academic scenarios that highlight how and why legitimization of differences can work in the engineering classroom. We invite you to watch the entire sequence in order or alternatively, watch any segments that most pique your interest.
Whether you have five minutes, five hours, or five weeks ... we encourage you to value the unique qualities of each of your students using this proven teaching technique!
UNDERSTANDING it (Animation)
Introduction to the Concept: here
Worried about Being Fair to Students?: coming soon
Worried about too Little Time in Class?: coming soon
SEEING it (Video)
The Mentor meets the Skeptic: here
The Skeptic goes into Action: here
MORE Ways to Go
Legitimizing Writing Ability: The writing abilities of engineering students can vary all over the map. Are you tired of a one-size-fits-all grading rubric that leaves some of your students feeling like their writing is hopeless and some feeling like they have no room for improvement? Are you overwhelmed by grading reams of writing in short periods of time? One way to legitimize differences in writing ability is to offer a student the opportunity to identify which part of her writing she would most like to improve during a particular course or time period. Rather than focusing on the whole (and often intimidating) prospect of advancing from a novice to an expert writer, the student can then narrow her efforts at improvement into a single area or component of your grading rubric (such as basic sentence structure or organization or addressing his audience). Legitimizing differences in this way gives you (the instructor) less ground to cover in grading and the student a more narrow scope for successfully improving her writing.
Legitimizing Perspective: Students often view problems from very different perspectives. Valuing these different perspectives can help to both engage and empower the student in contributing to a class, project, or activity. In certain courses, it may be suitable to expose students to contemporary applications of course concepts by requiring them to review a journal or magazine article of their choosing (and following up with an oral presentation, written summary, or other contribution made possible by the review). Rather than presenting information from a generic perspective, ask the student to choose a specific lens through which to organize and deliver key points of the review. For example, in reviewing an article on wetlands management, is the student taking the position of an engineer? ecologist? private land owner? After reviewing an article on the application of filters to cell-phone technology, does the student wish to view cell phones through the eyes of the design engineer? the manufacturing engineer? the user? the anthropologist?
Technique
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