This year I have 38 students taking my third year option module (entitled 'The Social Geography of Europe'). Earlier on in the semester there were a series of enquiry-based learning activities around a number of European data sets (the European Values Survey and some of the Eurostat databases), as well as analysis of newspaper coverage of various issues (we picked racism this year) from around the continent as whole. I also gave various short introductions to topics that students would work up for their projects (which are due in tomorrow), and to the seminars.
There are six seminars in the course and these take place in the second half of the semester. At one time I would have baulked at running a seminar-based programme with 38 students, but I have found ways of doing so which enable all students to be fully engaged - principally by dividing the total student body into between 6 and 8 groups for each seminar, each with a separate task. The groups are differently composed week by week, so that students get used to working with people they may not know well. And at the start of the whole course I asked the students to undertake a brief psychological profile questionnaire so that I have some basis on which to identify who are the ideas people, who have technical expertise, who are likely to be the glue in a group, and who are the finishers.
I am ovbiously keen for the students to develop an understanding of major social issues across Europe today. But I am also very keen for them to develop graduate skills. Hence my desire to operate each of the six seminars in a different way. It is seminar 4 that is giving me pause for thought at the moment.
Seminar 1 was on the changes that have occurred in Central and Eastern European cities since the ending of communism. This was a conventional session in which each of the 8 groups I had divided the students into made a 5 minute powerpoint presentation of their response to a particular question. In class they then undertook a morphological analysis of the built environment in a selection of cities, using maps and photographs as well as new-found knowledge of the operation of processes such as privatisation of the housing market. All the material they created has been 'sewn' together into one document that is now on the MOLE2 page for the module.
Seminar 2, this Friday, will be on the indigenous minority languages of Europe and their possible viability into the future. Student groups each have a minority language situation to cover, acting as the 'inspectors' that periodically prepare reports for the Council of Europe on countries that have signed the Convention on the Protection of Indigenous Minorities. (I was once involved in such an inspection myself, when I went to Russia as co-raporteur for an evaluation of Russia's policies to such minorities. It was at the time of the Chechen uprising, and my co-raporteur was the Hungarian deputy minister for gypsies. I can dine out on some of the stories of that meeting, if people ask me!) The students have to use powerpoint, but as 'slide packs' rather than as slides which will ever be shown on screen. Slide packs are now the commonest way for civil servants to prepare briefings for ministers (at least in the UK): they consist of a mixture of text and diagrams and do not need reading as continuous narrative. The students will discuss their reports in groups in class and then suggest possible alterations to the European Convention, as well as action points for governments and for minority groups themselves.
Seminar 3 will be next week and is on the break-up of former Yugoslavia and the remaining unsettled issues. The students are divided up into groups to role play the various factions involved - all the constituent groups of former Yugoslavia, plus some crucial external countries such as Greece and Bulgaria. All the reading suggested before the seminar is of polemical and nationalistic web sites, and the seminar requires each national group to explain their viewpoint to an outside figure - this year the scenario is a presentation to newly-elected President Romney (although I do hope I'm wr...!). Each group will be given 'their' flag and encouraged to play their role fully, down to heckling other speakers. A colleague stands in as the President while I make notes on what they are saying and then comment on their performance and the key points at the end, using a presentation that I write as they speak. Only after the session are they given an academic reading list on the topic.
That's all planned and in the bag. But seminar 4 is giving me pause for thought. It's on the various national policies seeking social cohesion in European countries. Two years ago I got an alumna who worked for an urban planning consultancy to come along and told the students that they had to make a policy pitch to her. I also told them they had to act professionally and come dressed suitably for such an occasion. It was the dress code and presenting to a real official that worried them - so much so that one poor student started her pitch and then rushed out to throw up. I've not tried that approach since. I've got until this Friday to decide how I want this year's seminar to run. I'd better go and get on with thinking about it. At least I've got seminars 5 and 6 already pretty well sorted out in my mind.
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