They’re rumored to be cake for all involved. For the prawf: an easy prep related to your current research. For the student: an all-but guaranteed easy B+ (at least), no exam, one meeting a week. Maybe a nice recommendation at the end of it all. What are “they”? Seminars, of course!
But what are they really about? More precisely, what should they be about? Is the point of a seminar (a) to teach substantive law on more advanced topics and in more depth than in a traditional class? Or is it (b) to give students an opportunity to critically engage with and discuss current scholarship on a given topic? Or both?
More after the jump …
Let’s say you teach a tax policy seminar, and you want to cover consumption taxes. (I know, this is tax. But the questions apply across all fields!)
Is your goal to teach students (not all of whom have the same tax background, even if basic tax is a pre-req) (1) what consumption taxes are, (2) the various ways they could be implemented, and (3) how our current system already contains elements of a consumption tax?
How do you get all these points across? Do you assign articles, or more descriptive pieces? Do you assign problem sets, like in most traditional tax classes? If so, then how does this seminar differ from a two-credit class?
Or is it to have students debate whether a consumption tax would be better than our income tax? Or to read and evaluate the latest consumption tax literature? Can they really debate the merits of a consumption tax without a full understanding of how they work and how they could be implemented? If you want them to read and debate current literature, do you care if the students “get” all the author’s main points? Or do you just want them to use the articles as a jumping-off point for a lively discussion? How do you generate and guide the discussion, if at all? Do you assign several small reaction papers, or one longer research paper?
My own thinking is to combine the two next time I teach a seminar. We’ll spend two weeks on each topic. The first week, we’ll do substantive law background, where I’ll teach like I usually do, through problem sets. The next week, I’ll assign two articles with contrasting views to generate discussion. I’ll try designating 2-3 students to be discussion leaders for each of these sessions, to ensure that at least some people have done the reading in depth. I hope those students will take ownership of the sessions and feel responsible for making sure a good discussion ensues.
What do you hope to accomplish in the seminars you run, and how do you structure the course to attain those goals?
Posted by Miranda Fleischer on March 21, 2007 at 11:19 AM
Comments
For students, you can get a nice paper that can possibly be turned into something publishable out of it. But cake? I agonized and sweated more over my seminars than any of my other classes. I kind of screwed myself a couple of semesters by putting in more time on my seminars than all of my other classes combined.
Posted by: Bart Motes | Mar 24, 2007 4:52:03 PM
One thing to consider is that often young profs think the seminar will be a piece of cake contrasted with the heavy preps a full basic course requires, and it turns out later on that the seminar is at least as much prep work. This is because: a) you are usually putting together your own materials, and there are tons of readings, editing decisions, compilation choices involved. b) because these are your own materials, you also get much less help by way of teaching notes, teaching manuals, power point sharing…c) one often needs to market the topic in a more creative way than when simply offering a well established course. In some ways, there is a big mismatch between the expectations of the professor in the seminar, thinking this is the most exciting set of ideas and materials one could hope for and the sheer excitement of the topic will simply be enough to keep the conversation going, and the students’ perspective, who are not even sure what the seminar is about. d) there is often a challenge with significant variation in students’ basic background in the topic. Even if one imposes a prerequisite, there are usually several way to meet it.
Posted by: Orly Lobel | Mar 22, 2007 1:22:43 AM
I mean b … sorry – bloglines means I don’t always catch the comments till late! B is what we did at Swarthmore, and I did love those seminars so, so much.
Posted by: David Zaring | Mar 22, 2007 1:18:42 AM
Ummm…some of us are not as cosmopolitan as you! What do you mean by “Oxford style?” Do you mean (a) a few students are responsible for doing papers on the assigned reading each week, and those students should be able to jump start the discussion, or (b) that a few (or all) students do papers each week and those papers are read and discussed by the whole class?
Posted by: Miranda | Mar 21, 2007 6:49:49 PM
Heh. Nice title. But then I got confused because you started talking about tax. I’m thinking that Oxford style with seminar papers prepared by some of the students to jump start discussion is the way to go?
Posted by: David Zaring | Mar 21, 2007 4:41:58 PM