Sometimes I use demos/activities before I lecture and sometimes after. I use them before when I want the students to discover the concepts for themselves. The lecture following is basically filling in what the students missed and summarizing their findings. When I use them after lecturing on the topic I want them to apply what they have learned. For example although I will have mentioned the different ways to collect data when I begin lecturing about needs assessment in my program planning course, I have not talked about the strengths and weaknesses when I have the students do a needs assessment simulation. After the simulation I have a set of questions that bring out the strengths and weaknesses of the various techniques which have been used. On the other hand I talk extensively about behavioral objectives before I have students engage in a class exercise. I use small groups extensively in my classes. I allow the students to choose their groups and those are the groups that they use for the entire semester. All students get the same grade on group assignments/projects. At the end of the semester they grade each member of their group on participation and this forms the major part of the class participation grade. At the beginning of the semester I talk about different ways that groups may decide to work - all members may work on everything, they may divide the workload according to knowledge and skills possessed by members, or some other model. I tell them that how they accomplish their work is up to the group. I will act as a mediator and guide if they request but the final decision of how to work is up to them. Many of them are concurrently taking the required leadership class - these are health services students - where they do learn about group dynamics. However, the students in these groups are not necessarily the best group workers. In my program planning and program evaluation classes the context for group work is fairly easy. However, I also use it courses like health behavior theory where the students create a dictionary of theories. In my intro public health course the students choose an area of public health to present to the class and write a paper from their research on the topic area. I only give them general topic areas; they have to narrow their topic, choose how they will research it, and how they will present it. In a computers course I used to teach the groups wrote their own scenario that would require software and hardware and then shopped for the hardware and software. Joyce Morris Public Health Sciences Wichita State University
