Constructive criticism in the classroom
After all my years of schooling, more than anything else I have come to really appreciate the role of the classroom discussion in my educational experience. Nothing beats the process of engaging in a piece of material with my peers and a knowledgeable professor. It motivates me to clearly focus, be creative, and have fun with my newly-acquired knowledge. Far too often throughout my years of classroom involvement, however, have I seen perfectly good discussions soured by a small number of classmates that just don’t seem to “get it.”
As we all know, a classroom is full of many students—usually at least a dozen or more—and everyone is there (supposedly) to benefit from, and participate in, the class. Since there is a large number of people present in a class, there is a natural problem: How to keep everyone on the same page?
From my experience, I’ve developed the opinion that few people actually think or care about this problem—both students and professors alike. I have been involved in many a classroom discussion throughout my academic career, but I can barely remember an instance where the actual etiquette of a classroom discussion was brought up for the class to consider. The consequence of this, unfortunately, has been readily apparent to me. More often than not, a promising classroom topic falls victim to a group of classroom participants who simply fail to grasp the momentum of the discussion, and their attempt to participate often takes the discussion off on an irrelevant tangent.
I don’t think that anyone purposely wants to go off on a tangent in a class discussion, but I just don’t think the average college student has much training in the art of dialogue. Most people feel as though they are supposed to contribute something to a classroom discussion, but they aren’t always sure how to do it. What often happens is students try to say something, anything, to just get involved. And then, out of concern for the student’s feelings, no one—not even the instructor—will point out to that student that their comment was either short sighted or irrelevant. That is, of course, understandable given that we don’t want to hurt other peoples’ feelings; however, the interests of the class also deserve to be appreciated and I think it might be more worthwhile to be liberal in our criticisms of others’ comments in class.
This is not to say that a criticism must be tactless—there are many forms of constructive criticism out there that students can learn from. If they were used more regularly, I think students would learn more about the role of constructive criticism in the educational process—both how to give it and how to receive it—that would, by extension improve, the quality of subsequent classroom discussions. Sure, students will feel embarrassed and uncomfortable at times, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Is it not part of our education to build genuine confidence in ourselves? Are we not here to learn what it is like to generate an idea, present the idea to a group, and then see that idea fail? Will we not have to present and defend our ideas to others outside classroom walls in our careers? I think that giving and receiving criticism is part of the learning process and I believe that the more other students challenge each other in a class discussion, the more educational value all the students will ultimately get out of the class. So I propose that we take a more confrontational stance in our classrooms. When a fellow student makes an irrelevant comment, we should tell the student that their comment was off the mark and also tell them why—how else will they learn from their mistakes, and how else will the integrity of the class discussion be preserved?