Beginnings are important.
Welcome to 9.70!
Everything that is said is said by someone.
In accordance with a tradition that has evolved over many successive yearly "editions" of 9.70, the plan for the organization and development of our semester-long learning process is based on a pedagogical model that takes the class as a whole -- together with all of its constituent elements or parts -- as a prototypical human social system -- a collaborative learning system, to be more precise -- in the process of formation.
With some guidance from the instructor and input from past 9.70 classes, this version of 9.70 will organize itself within the timeframe and educational context of a semester-long undergraduate elective subject.
Required Text: Aronson, Elliot. The Social Animal. 8th ed. New York: Worth Publ, 1999, pp. 548. (Hereafter, SA). In effect, Aronson will be our guide to the experimental social psychological literature. His book concisely and cogently defines social psychology as "the study of social influence" and then goes on to explain how our mental lives (our thoughts and feelings) and our behavior (what we actually do - and do not do) are affected (for better or worse) by influences arising from the socially-organized situations in which we find ourselves.
SA is a book about the psychology of human interaction, written from his own particular personal and social (e.g. academic and professional) point of view by a particular man who is an acknowledged authority on the scientific study of human individuals and groups.
In Aronson's company, this class will collaboratively explore the mental composition and behavioral significance of social attitudes; compare and contrast similarities and differences between people; indoctrination and education; love and hate, conflict and cooperation; fear and rage; aggression and violence; selfishness and altruism; conformity and deviance; prejudice and open-mindedness; pessimism and optimism; sympathy and indifference; empathy and antipathy; apathy and commitment, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness; impotence and empowerment; peace and war; cooperation and competition; etc. etc.
Our careful and conscientious chapter-by-chapter reading of the book will proceed until very nearly the end of the term according to the schedule outlined below. Topic by topic we will thus survey the dynamics of social influence in a wide range of both routine and problematical situations in search of some scientifically credible and well-grounded, theoretically sound and (therefore?) practically useful answers to questions most of will keep on asking about ourselves and other people throughout our lives: "What makes us who and what we are?" "Why do we like or dislike each other?" "Are there ways to reduce or overcome prejudice and discrimination?" Does watching violence on TV make children (adults?) more or less overtly aggressive?" "What are "cults?" "What is "terrorism?" "How can people blindly follow the commands of someone in a position of authority who orders them to engage in violent acts aimed at other people and or property, even to the point of committing mass murder and suicide?"
Writing in Contemporary Psychology, premier book-review journal of the American Psychological Association, one reviewer called a recent edition of SA "a masterpiece" and argued that, after 25 years, it is "still the best." The Paris-based Revue de Questions Scientifique refers to it as "the bible of American social psychology." Contemporary Sociology calls it "a rare gem of a book", and The British Journal of Social Psychology describes it as "provocative and eminently readable." SA has been translated into more than a dozen foreign languages, and reputedly has been read by more people than any other social psychology textbook ever published.
Generally speaking, student readers have expressed similarly up-beat opinions. Here is brief sampling of comments compiled from various sources:
"An excellent book! ... fun to read (compared to other college books). It cites lots of really interesting studies about everyday things (many of them of the kind that actually are obvious but tend to go unnoticed until they are pointed out to you). And it makes some very important points about the social psychology of situations involving (e.g.) prejudice and self-justification. Even if you're not going to be a social psychologist ... I think it's important to read. I highly recommend it!"
"In lay-person's prose, Aronson reviews many influential social psychological achievements. He accurately explains what social psychology is and why it's important for everybody to know something about it. Aronson is extremely helpful without ever sounding like a professor talking down to students. SA is a must-read for everyone, not only because it is so clear and cogent, but because it can explain and clarify so many the basic social processes underlying so much of everyday life. I've given copies to my parents and siblings and friends. ... Great, well-written, fun to read, highly informative, and thoroughly based in research. It has important implications for us all. What more could one ask?"
"I am a current undergraduate student at the University of California at Santa Cruz. This past quarter, I had the honor of being in Elliot Aronson's last ever lecture class ... It was amazing. His teaching and writing inspired me to re-evaluate my actions and myself as a person. Aronson's heart shows through in his writing-and even more in his lecturing. The book truly causes one to look at his/her actions and reactions to various interactions with those around her/him. The Social Animal focuses on why, how, and when people formulate different ideas about society and the people contained in it. One definitely gains an understanding of oneself and social interactions, views, ideals, prejudices, etc. after reading this critical analysis of human social behavior. Again, I feel honored to have been enlightened by Elliot Aronson."
"A very interesting and tremendously well-written book-a pure delight to read. Aronson not only demonstrates his wide-ranging knowledge of Social Psychology, but also attempts (very successfully, in my opinion) to transmit to the reader his infectious enthusiasm for the subject. By consciously choosing not to employ pretentious language (alas, the bane of academia!), Aronson allows the subject to speak for itself. This is an immensely readable book. Few high-school students would have any problems getting through it. It is very informative. Having read this book during my freshman year in college, it led to a series of steps that culminated in my decision to go on to graduate school in Social Psychology. Read it!"
"A fantastically user-friendly guide to understanding whether or not the things we SA y about much of human behavior are true. For example: "Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder?" "If I want people to believe me, should I speak first or last?" "What attracts people to each other?" "Will seeing violence on TV matter?" ... The Social Animal offers many plain and often amusing insights into what psychologists have learned by studying how people behave in realistic (and not so realistic) social contexts. Few books offer as much enlightenment about what happens in social circumstances, with such easily understood and well-grounded presentation."
With occasional interruptions (while we tried out some other texts) students in 9.70 have been reading SA (in successive editions) for almost two decades. Their feedback on the book has been, for the most part, comparably positive. In my own considered judgment SA contains an honest, accurate, well-researched, appropriately selective, and pretty much up to date survey of some of the main themes of modern experimental social psychological research. The writing is mostly smooth and graceful and easy to understand. The narrative as a whole is concise and coherent and almost always couched in an engagingly unpretentious and altogether "down to earth" style. Aronson doesn't much mince words and he can be quite provocative and "hard-hitting" when dealing with some timely and controversial topics.
Housekeeping/Logistics
1. Class
Enrolment will be limited to 72. If necessary, a non-stratified lottery will be used to reduce class size to that level. What follows assumes that there is no need for a lottery, or that one has been held and the reader has survived it. If you decide to remain in the class, please be forewarned: 9.70 is not a normal "lecture" class. Despite the instructor's evident ability and willingness to talk at you, his greater interest is in maintaining and improving the scientific credibility, pedagogical soundness and educational efficacy of the paradigm (save the mark!) that has been evolved over the years with the input of your predecessors extending back over many 9.70 "generations and in accordance with which many conventional classroom roles and powers and responsibilities intentionally get themselves more or less seriously called into question. It is the instructor's explicitly avowed intention for you to join him and your classmates and groupmates as collaborators in the organization and development of a collaborative learning system that is conceptually and materially appropriate to the serious study of the designated subject matter.
This your predecessors and I have done in the manner that we have inherited from them.
Reduced to essentials, the structure and functions of the learning system are defined in the process of its own organization and development. This process takes place within the conceptual and materially complex boundaries of a human social situation locally administratively defined as a semester-long 12 unit undergraduate subject of instruction (a 12 unit HASS elective subject, to be more precise) being given under the academic auspices of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences of the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the Spring term of the 2002 academic year.
Unless we can come up with a better way, 9.70 will be driven, facilitated and "steered" through the territory outlined in the accompanying syllabus by a structured leadership process.(*1) Henceforth, nominal class leadership will pass from one study group to the next. Starting with study group #1 (9.70.02.01) each study group will, in turn, work with the class and with me to define and to deal with issues needing to be defined and dealt with at that particular point in the process. Collaborative learning system. Playing various defined roles by the participants students/instructor(s)). In this class, participation is not merely or even mainly a spectator sport (although it is a rule governed "game" in the sense of involving some generally understood methods of procedure). This means that conscientious attendance at and involvement in the work of all regularly scheduled class meetings, study group meetings and other events is only the beginning. On the contrary, the hands-on pedagogical approach taken here emphasizes the need for each and every student to enjoy the power and responsibility of working meaningfully and effectively together with others in pursuit of some genuinely worthwhile common goals and shared objectives. Your overarching term-long learning task in this class is two-fold. It entails, on the one hand, becoming familiar with the nature and scope and significance of experimental social psychological research on "social influences" that has been and is being done by academic and professional social psychologists via adherence to the epistemological, axiological and methodological entailments (i.e. the scientific beliefs, values and practices) of the presently generally prevailing (so-called "modern") scientific paradigm. On a more down to earth, basic, empirical, day-to-day, experiential, social psychological level, you will be concurrently learning about the organization and development of human social systems by participating in and concurrently observing our efforts to organize ourselves into a scientifically informed, pedagogically sound, educationally effective collaborative learning system.
Thus, it cannot be overstressed that the educational value of the learning experience that lies ahead will be determined by the quality and amount of time and effort that the membership of this class puts into the task of creating a collaborative learning system that really works.
In its organization and development, the 9.70 learning system exemplifies (for better or worse) a "human group formation" process. Precisely because it thus belongs to a class or category that arguably includes many other human social systems, it is possible to presume that what there is to be learned about the organization and development of 9.70 -- from its early February beginning through to its mid-May end - will be applicable, mutatis mutandis, as the philosophers like to say; that is, "with the necessary conceptual and terminological changes") to an understanding of the more or less invariant sequence of developmental phases and stages through which all such systems tend to pass. In this connection, please give serious consideration to the proposition that while all groups go through essentially the same succession of phases or stages, no two systems do so in exactly the same way, or with the same timing or outcome. One reason for this, the main reason, perhaps, is that while the "deep structure" of development process itself is predictably marked by encounters with major intersections or turning points, the ultimate developmental outcome depends on the ways in which the participants have chosen to define and to deal with the conceptually and materially critical "surface structure" issues that come successively to the fore as the system lifecycle unfolds.
Moreover, it is important to understand that the manner in which individuals and groups define and deal with developmental crises or issues determines, in part, the resulting outcomes, and the latter become interwoven, in turn, with subsequent efforts to define and deal with all future developmental matters. For example, the sorts of issues which initially tend to arise at the stage of entry, or even in the phase of "pre-affiliation" (i.e. before or at the very start of group formation) tend to be of an approach/avoidance kind. It is at this point that questions frequently unspoken) tend to arise in the minds of prospective participants in a particular situation about basic issues of personal safety and comfort, benefit, and rightness of choice. "Is this what I really want to be doing with the time and effort that I have available to devote to a (BCS, HASS, or Psychology) elective subject this term?" "Is this going to be interesting or a drag? "Sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I should've chosen that other class?!") The point to bear in mind here is that the development of any human social group (like that of any human individual) is a sequential process involving normal stages or phases that are ordinarily identifiable and resulting in a trajectory (from beginning to end) whose "success or failure" depends, at least partly, for better or worse, on the credibility, soundness, and effectiveness with which the normally-occurring sequence of crises is defined and dealt with. In any case, the flow of events, passage of time and changing demand characteristics of the situation invariably ensure that the process itself keeps on moving (from beginning to end; from start to finish, from birth to death).
The point is crucially important and worth pursuing a bit further. As time passes and your 9.70 learning experience further matures, the consequences of earlier patterns of individual and collective action (and inaction) will condition and constrain the sensitivity and range of responses available for future developmental purposes. Thus do early experiences and events shape later coping styles. At the very beginning, approach/avoidance conflict is normal and a modicum of uncertainty is to be expected. Don't take it on my word alone. Consider your own experience.
Discuss your own thoughts and feelings with others. (Note: in each and every conversation many things are always going on. For example, when discussing 9.70-related issues with others - both inside and outside of class - try to pay close attention to what is happening in addition to an exchange of information (e.g. attempts to conform with presumed expectations? efforts at "impression management"?)
We try to make 9.70 "real," so do not be too surprised to find yourself and others experiencing and expressing occasional thoughts and feelings of frustration, anger, boredom, alienation; By the same token, you should anticipate some moments of real interest and engagement, a bit here and there of some positive personal intellectual and emotional involvement and some just plain fun; Later on questions of meaning and power and freedom and necessity will also arise, along with tensions between putting-in and getting-out, giving and receiving, costs and benefits, rights and responsibilities, freedom and dignity, justice and mercy, diversity and unity, stagnation and productivity, anomie and generativity and so on and so forth.
Creating sustainable collaborative learning systems in an MIT classroom isn't easy. But neither is it impossible. Many years of experience with 9.70 teaches us that it can and does occur in this class. But, it takes more than the passage of time for a collection of individuals (however academically or technically proficient, task oriented, and hard-working) to acquire the basic social/psychological concepts and skills needed to organize themselves into a trustworthy and effective collaborative learning system. Given the quite narrowly defined time and effort boundaries of the present social context this is no easy task...
When I started teaching 9.70 many long years ago, I did not have the slightest idea that it would evolve over the years into the kind of class it has become. But I am extremely proud to be able to hand it on to you in the form that it has been given by preceding "generations" of 9.70 students. For my own part, I can honestly say that I am sometimes a very slow learner and it has only been very gradually and over many years that I have learned to trust the process of inviting a more or less random set of MIT undergraduates to undertake a collaborative journey of inquiry towards a consensually-agreed-upon goal.
With their help, you will here have ample opportunity to confront some serious real-world social issues, and to encounter some important scientific beliefs, values and practices relevant to an understanding of the organization and development of human social/psychological systems. With due diligence and attention to particulars, who knows, you might even pick up some useful learnable skills or knowledge that will prove valuable in future personal and social (e.g. academic and professional) endeavors.
But in order for it to work, meaningful and effective contributions to the 9.70 learning process must be made by everyone and on all levels of the system.
2. Individuals and (Study) Groups
The class will be or has been randomly subdivided into no more than 12 study groups of no more than 6 members each. Just as it is up to all of us to work together effectively and productively at the class level, so some serious and sustained cooperation is required in order for a random collection of students to organize and develop themselves into effective and productive study groups. To repeat: the development and maintenance of sustainable collaborative relations is a main goal of the 9.70 learning system and should be taken by each and all as a paramount focus for the exercise of individual and collective power and responsibility at all levels of involvement.
Study groups meet independently for the purpose of working/studying together.
The workload includes a nominal study group commitment of two hours of collaborative work each week.
That adds up to at least five contact hours per week.
What does this mean? On the one hand, it is not intended that any of you find yourselves putting in more than 7 additional hours per week of time/effort in the way of homework (e.g. reading/writing/watching films, etc.)
On the other hand, it is not at all intended that any of you find yourselves putting in substantially less than the stipulated amount of time and effort. More to the point, it is important for me, and the other people working with you in the class and in your study group to have some way of knowing how to gauge their own commitments, and toward this end, it would surely be helpful to know something about the modicum of time and effort that you are ready, willing and bale to put into it.
Precisely because you will be working and studying together with others who are presumably no less pressured than you are by MIT's proverbial "fire-hose," you need to pay due attention to other aspects of the time/effort commitment question. Where and when to meet? Do this by pre-scheduling and by exchanging feedback with each other (both within and across study groups) regarding hopes and fears and expectations about the process.
Additional adjustments will need to be made on occasions when you have some special 9.70 responsibilities to fulfill (see below). Your group may therefore wish to decide on a "backup" meeting time, in case you need to get together more often and/or for longer periods. Indeed, precisely because formal homework assignments (reading/writing) will rarely demand as much as 5-6 hours per week of additional time and effort outside of class and group meeting times. Nevertheless, you should expect to devote at least the stipulated amount of time and effort to class meetings, study group activities, and homework.
If, in the course of the term, you find 9.70 seriously lacking in form or content (e.g. if you feel that the workload is too much (or too little), if you don't understand or like the way the class is being run, or think the demand characteristics of the situation are unreasonable or that the instructor is a ___________, or the class as a whole (or in part) is going nowhere or things have gone too far or in a wrong direction or that the whole idea of the 9.70 learning system is wrong or stupid or useless (or worse); that something about it is otherwise mistaken, misaimed, misdirected, etc. please understand that you retain the right and responsibility to make your opinion clear to your groupmates, and classmates, and the instructor. (At very least. As Franz Kaffka said, "The door to the law stands open, as usual.")
The frequency, time, place, and duration of study group meetings must be agreed upon among the members. (With a minimum of 2 hours/week, overall, on average.)
Note (1): when it comes to choosing a meeting time and place, bear in mind that you are supposed to be meeting as a study group . Please take that appellation seriously. (One way is to approach 9.70 as if it were a UROP (e.g. as if meetings of the class or your study group were a series of regular research meetings in which you and other colleagues pursuing the same course of inquiry come together regularly to discuss problems and progress of the inquiry.) Of course you also need to leave time for doing things (e.g. reading/writing assignments). Time to reflect on issues of significant importance to everyone concerned, so that you are prepared to make informed and constructive contributions to the learning process. Therefore schedule and attend regular meetings at times and in places where interruptions, distractions, etc. won't arise and impair your ability to concentrate, to remain task-oriented and/or to listen and talk with each other. Try to find a relatively private and quiet place to meet (an otherwise unoccupied smallish classroom/seminar room or study with a table and chairs and a blackboard is ideal); choose a location that's not unduly inconvenient for anyone and where everyone will feel reasonably comfortable. Once you find a mutually agreeable time and place that works, stick to it. Unless you're intent on creating confusion and causing people to miss meetings, it is best to avoid setting yourselves up for trouble by "floating" from one meeting place/time to another. Be comparably mindful of the need to be comparably attentive, conscientious and well-disciplined with respect to the task of undertaking and completing all regular and special assignments (reading text and handouts, writing journal entries and minutes, film-viewing, journal-keeping, and steering (reviewing and responding to minutes, giving and receiving substantive and procedural feedback individually and collectively to and from classmates, groupmates and the instructor.
Note (2): "Minutes" (see below) will be submitted weekly, and must be received by the instructor via email no later than 6pm on the Wednesday evening immediately preceding the next Thursday class meeting . Accordingly, your study group should not arrange to meet on Wednesday evenings or before class on Thursdays. Let me explain:
Sometime after completing, its own weekly meeting(s), each study group is responsible for preparing a brief (1-2 page) typewritten paper, henceforth referred to as "weekly study group meeting minutes." Ideally, a few successive drafts of this document - along with other relevant communications - will be circulating within the boundaries of the study group. Please do not use available channels of telecommunication unduly promiscuously.
The organization and development of 9.70 will be shaped decisively (for better or worse) by the quality (e.g. timeliness, pertinence, meaningfulness, constructiveness, clarity, incisiveness, coherence, insightfulness, and brevity) of our interpersonal, intra-group and other inter-subsystem communication (among groupmates, with classmates, between student(s) and instructor(s), between 9.70 and other (e.g. surrounding) human social systems.
After going through at least a few iterations, the final and "all fully signed off on" copy of your group's weekly "minutes" must reach the instructor by 6pm SHARP! via email. Within the hour, he will read and evaluate and provide some written feedback on them, before returning them to you - before or soon after 7 pm by return email. At the same time he will also forward copies of your minutes, with his annotations and possible additional comments, to the "steering group of the week" whose members will already be well-along in the process of planning the next day's class. They will carefully read all of this material and arrange to incorporate relevant points as appropriate into the agenda they will be in the process of developing. In addition to the agenda itself, they will be responsible for preparing three summary overviews and evaluations (1) of last week's class, (2) of this week's topics and assignments and of (3) this week's weekly minutes. As soon as possible after completion, a copy of the aforementioned summaries and the proposed agenda are to be forwarded to everyone in the class (hopefully this can be done in time to allow them to be read and digested before the upcoming class). As a backup, hard copies should be printed out, brought to class and made available at the door in the form of printed handouts.
In order to be useful to the steering process, weekly minutes and the summaries prepared there from must provide theoretically and practically relevant feedback regarding the organization and development of the class and its various component parts or subsystems. Therefore, please be sure to (1) include a brief summary statement from each member, regarding the form and content and quality of his/her own 9.70-related activities during the time since the previous class session; (2) note the timeliness and quality of your own performance and that of your groupmates as appropriate (mention things like readings and films as appropriate; comment on timeliness and consistency of members' attendance and participation in class and study group meetings, (Who was there? Who wasn't? Did everybody arrive on time and stay for the duration? Was everyone well-prepared? What was discussed? What was said? What points of agreement and/or differences of opinion developed? What conclusions were reached? etc.); (2) mention any noteworthy individual/group ideas/problems/accomplishments, (3) answer questions posed in the Syllabus (Handout #1), (4) raise for the benefit of the "steering group of the week" any organizational/procedural/substantive issues or questions or criticisms that group members feel strongly about (e.g. issues pertaining to the subject matter, to the content of the assigned readings -- see below -- or to what is going on in the study group and/or class meetings). If done conscientiously, this virtual "paper chase" will generate lots of useful guidance and the feedback will serve all of us well as a way of keeping communication lines open between and among classmates - both individually and as members of study groups and between students and the instructor.
Some guidelines: What we do not want or need here is a word-by-word transcript of your meeting. Nor will it suffice for us to receive a mere list of who was present and what was discussed. Rather, what we hope and expect to receive are more meaningful "process notes" and "summary statements" and "formative evaluations." The readers of your contributions are trying to evaluate and facilitate the ongoing learning process. You can help them best by telling them something about (e.g.) conclusions reached regarding topically relevant issues. Did you enjoy and learn something worthwhile from the readings/films? What was your experience of the last class? How was your last study group meeting? Did you get into any good (useful, helpful, interesting, stimulating, fun, etc.)discussions? If so, what was the upshot? If not, why not? How do you feel so far about the subject matter? About the quality of the learning process? What is good about the class? What is bad (boring, obvious, wrong, confusing, etc.) about it? What is your opinion of the role of the instructional subsystem here? How are the readings? the films? the classroom or group discussions? etc.? How smooth/rough is the ride? What about the quality of your development into a "serious student" of social psychology? an effective study group member?
Further to the point: Duties and responsibilities associated with producing and distributing study group meeting minutes are like those associated with all 9.70 tasks: it is up to the group to conscientiously negotiate, devise, and implement an expeditious and equitable way of working together as such, including establishing an open and effective way for members to give and get feedback. Strive for a fair division of labor and a workable system of checks and balances intended to enhance the quality of the collaborative learning on all levels (individual, study group, and whole-class). Toward this end, we suggest that you carefully consider both pros and cons before deciding on ways of distributing tasks among individual study group members -- and within the larger 9.70 system. In some cases, the most rational divisions of labor can make it appear that people are working well and smoothly together, without actually enabling anybody to enjoy the more meaningful kinds of learning experiences that are available here and which are (more importantly) increasingly required by people who aspire to engage with others in successful group collaboration under "real world" academic and professional conditions. In sum: you and the instructor and the class and your study group will all need to work at it if we are to evolve (in the limited time available) into mutually-supportive, complementary parts of a sustainable (scientifically credible, pedagogically
sound, socially responsible, relatively informationally open) collaborative learning system.
Recall: Our subject during the upcoming two class sessions is: "the science of social psychology and vice versa." In order for our inquiry to succeed, we have got to "get real" about what our subject has to teach us about the pleasures and pains of working together to implement the organization, development and maintenance of the particular human social system that we call 9.70.
Is it possible to have meaningful and mutually intelligible scientific communication between and among us within this situation/setting? My answer is yes - within limits - provided only that each and every 9.70 participant/observer is able to trust the learning process to the extent of expecting themselves (ourselves and each other) to act responsibly and in good faith with respect to learning tasks needing to be accomplished. (*2)
Note (3): As already mentioned, it is important that all group members have an opportunity to see, to review and, in effect, "sign off on" the weekly study group meeting minutes submitted in their names (more below). In all likelihood, this will generate a fair amount of collaborative writing via electronic means. To what extent should the exchange of emails be allowed to replace or reduce the occurrence of face-to-face encounters?
3. "Facilitating" 9.70
Although the random mode of selection that we use in creating the study groups within the class has been criticized by some as unduly harsh and arbitrary, I continue to favor it strongly. So a word of explanation and self justification may be in order before proceeding. The random approach reflects my carefully considered view that each prospective participant comes at this moment from a background that is separate and distinct from everyone else's.
Accordingly, each of us enters into this setting or situation (i.e. "this collaborative learning system in formation") with certain preconceptions and expectations and attitudes already "in mind." The explicit randomization of membership acknowledges this fact by randomizing the influence of "invisible loyalties." Everybody ends up in a group that was formed in the same way. It this helps to put everyone and all groups on a "level playing field."
Each of the twelve study groups will be established under a different group number. Beginning with the second class meeting and Study Group One and continuing through each of the next 11 successive weeks of the term (i.e. through the next to the last class meeting on Thursday, May 9) class meetings will be "steered" in consecutive rotation, by a different study group. Some steering group responsibilities will be relatively constant, others will change with the process as it develops.
We proceed in this way because it enables everyone to carry a fair share of the power and responsibility that students have for organizing and developing an optimal 9.70 learning process. The Syllabus outlines some of the specific learning objectives that we believe to be attainable. The topics themselves, and the indicated sequencing are negotiable, but the listed topics indicate the scope and range of the subject matter that can be covered in 9.70 if we can manage to organize ourselves into an effective collaborative learning system.
Mark your calendars now. In the event of irreconcilable conflicts, study groups may contact others with a view toward exchanging steering assignments.
What does "steering" involve? It is disconcertingly difficult - impossible, in fact -- to give a single, simple, clear-cut, generic answer. Why? Because the "demand characteristics" of the task necessarily and inevitably change as the term proceeds.
Each steering committee will, however, follow the same general procedure -- one that has evolved over the years, and is intended to facilitate the whole process. Reduced to essentials, it works like this: During the week immediately preceding the one in which you will be facilitating, you and the other members of your study group will continue to play your usual roles of "participants/observers" in/of the 9.70 process. In addition, however, you are to serve as "bystanders" and "recorders."
Alas, those of you who ended up in Group One had no warning of this and have thus been precluded from taking detailed and pertinent "process and content" notes. Nevertheless, we will rely upon you to develop the necessary summaries and to incorporate them as appropriate in your plans for the next class meeting. Hint: as soon as possible after the first class session (by tomorrow afternoon at the latest), you and your fellow study group members should begin discussing things among yourselves and with the instructor, as appropriate. Begin the process by combining and editing your notes from the previous class and prepare from them a brief (1-2 page) typescript, "photocopy-ready" account of "where we are and what is going on."
With particular reference to "next steps," your deliberations about "where are we going?" "what should our goal(s) be?" "what needs facilitating?" should be based on your own individual and collective readings of these initial handouts and your experience as members of the class!
As already noted: At or shortly after 7pm on the Wednesday immediately preceding the next Thursday class meeting - the one that your group is scheduled to steer - members of your study group will receive from the instructor (by email) copies of the study group meeting minutes that were received by him by the aforementioned 6pm deadline and which he will by then have read and annotated and returned. He will forward this material to you, together with his response to the "summary/overview of the last class" that you have turned in with your own minutes.
By 11 pm that same evening - or at the latest, by 7am on Thursday - you should have completed your planning work and everyone in the class should receive from your study group, an email communication providing (a) your final summary-overview of the last class session (b) highlights or common themes from the study group meeting minutes received, including comments on last week's class and responses to comments and questions raised about issues dealt with in the current homework assignment(s) (c) a brief account of the considerations that entered into the planning process that you've been going through (d) What has influenced how your agenda developed? Was it was significantly influenced by feedback received from meeting minutes or elsewhere?
(e) Did you have any consultations with the instructor? If so, what was discussed/decided? Finally, let your message conclude with (f) a concise statement of your main aim(s) for the upcoming class and (g) a provisional agenda, indicating how you are proposing to utilize the available meeting time. Hard copies of handouts should also be brought to the class meeting.
Note: Generally speaking, classrooms are complex human social situations in which relations involving students and teachers take place in an intensely problematical mix of "social influences." Cardinal among these influences are a few key social norms pertaining to "meaning" and "power." That may sound like a highly abstract academic mouthful but the fact is that issues of definition and classification loom large in any enterprise that endeavors to study human systems scientifically.
Accordingly, you will need to learn some technical lingo. Pay particular attention to social psychological meanings of terms like "compliance," "obedience to authority," "conformity," "opposition," "conflicting values," etc. etc." Learning to understand and to use such terms appropriately is part of what is to be learned here. By hypothesis: social influences of many kinds from many sources are more or less effectively operating within, between, among, on and through us as we begin to take up our studies. Nor will they go away when we are done. Is it going to prove possible for us to learn to collaborate with one another in pursuit of common objectives (e.g. developing and implementing an appropriate plan for the next class meeting)? Time will tell.
When they first hear about this method of procedure many students are inclined to object that "9.70 is not what I expected." Although leadership power and responsibility falls to each individual and study group only once during the term, the necessity of doing so much "extra" in such a short a time, creates conflicts with other scheduled academic activities, up to and sometimes including encroaching on time and effort that deserves to be devoted to other subjects of instruction. Acknowledging that such objections are justifiable, we decided several years ago that we would therefore have to forego the whole process. At that time, 9.70 reverted to its original format as a standard lecture class. However, the results of doing so were so far from salutary that a more hands-on approach has been reinstated at the insistence of your predecessors.
At the beginning of the class meeting, with the membership of the class looking-on, the "steering group of the week" will lead us in reviewing where we've been and are heading by leading us in a discussion of the minutes, the agenda and other materials at hand in the light of the week's assignments and discussion topics, and define our approach to the activities that will follow.
4. A Word of Caution
Materials pertinent to later class sessions will be made available to prospective steering groups as soon as is practicable before it comes their time to steer. We can do this to the extent that the Stellar program that we will be using and the sequential topical structure of the syllabus permits it. However, it is impossible to anticipate with any confidence other issues that may arise in the interim and alter the direction in which the class will be going or the rate at which we will be moving at the appointed time. Precisely because so much cannot be so easily foreseen, groups that will be steering several weeks hence should not allow their present plans to become fixed as if "carved in stone." Try to learn as much as you can about the topics we will be dealing with, but don't devote an undue amount of time, long in advance, to trying to figure out exactly what you will be doing when the time comes. In a phrase: "stay with and trust the process."
5. A Word of Warning
Precisely because participation is the "name of the game in 9.70" we expect full, punctual, and faithful attendance by everyone at all regularly scheduled activities. In the context of a collaborative learning system of the kind we are endeavoring to create, this is not merely a formal demand. Rather it is to be taken as a serious warning regarding the minimum precondition for the kind and level of participation that is needed to make it work.
This applies, of course, to both class and study group meetings throughout the term. When your turn comes, it also applies to all facilitation activities (including attendance at and participation in the aforementioned review and planning meeting). Please mark your calendars accordingly now. Individuals and groups with any foreseeable scheduling conflicts, must either resolve them forthwith or withdraw from 9.70 immediately! The point is worth pursuing: by continuing in this class from this point onward, you are signifying to each other and to us that you are ready, willing and able to make the aforementioned commitment to participate fully and faithfully in all scheduled activities.
Please do not misunderstand. We are not trying to "trick you" into making a commitment to this class. Much less do we mean to be unduly harsh or "sticky." As far as making 9.70 the best possible learning experience is concerned, this question of commitment is not merely or even mainly an "administrative" issue. As will be further explained below, the inherently "social" nature of our subject imposes constraints upon us that may not so clearly apply in other classroom contexts. Hence, kinds of behavior that might otherwise be "routine" can turn out to be "problematical" for us and are therefore "grist for our mill." Given the nature of the enterprise, can you see how such things as "adding," "punting," "coming late," "having a conflict," "cutting-out early," "being absent," "dropping," etc. might foresee an adversely impact the organization and development of group cohesion at various levels?
6. Keeping a Journal
Like any instance of would-be-serious scientific inquiry, your prospective participation in and observation of the organization and development of the 9.70 learning system presents you with a potentially valuable part of your academic and professional training. In order for it to be so, however, the process itself needs to be kept track of. Toward that end: everyone in this class is expected to keep a journal.
Start without delay. Either use the on-line facility that is in process of being set up or get yourself a hardbound composition-style notebook (or the equivalent) and start using it to keep a personal chronological record of your efforts to comprehend social psychological phenomena scientifically.
By extension of what has already been said about the scientific attitude that we are endeavoring to help you to cultivate, our hope and expectation is that you will approach this task with something like the stance of a serious researcher - a member of an expedition, for example. keeping a field notebook. Toward that end: Honesty accuracy and diligence count! Be faithful in your journal-keeping: Make regular and relevant entries. Use your Journal to record (and thereby to explore) your own thoughts and feelings about any and all aspects of 9.70 as ill as any other topics of social psychological interest.
How can we help you to get into the habit of writing regular and honest entries? Let us start by making it clear, from the outset, that keeping your Journal is your responsibility. More to the point: all the writing you do in it is
written to and for yourself. Except as noted below, you will not be required to share the substantive contents of your journal with anyone else (including us). (On the other hand, you can, of course, feel free to share entries with others -- including the instructor -- as you see fit.)
Our approach to 9.70 should not be expected to produce a perfect learning system. But, if conscientiously followed, it sometimes can come pretty close! In this connection, let's not fool ourselves. Due to the intense pace and pressure of MIT, the best of intentions to conscientiously fulfill general assignments like "keep a journal" easily get lost in the helter-skelter. What can you do to prevent this activity from being unduly overwhelmed by the full force of the "fire-hose?" Is there any way to ensure that 9.70 tasks like Journal-keeping are taken seriously by everyone?
It would be easy enough for us to simply require you to make your written work available for periodic or on-demand inspection. But that would be pedagogically self-defeating. What we will do, however, is to ask you to keep your journal with you at all times -- especially when participating in 9.70 activities. In addition, you should be prepared to show (without disclosure of the contents in detail) that it is being ill-used for the purposes already outlined.
7. Keeping Track
Toward this end, a third handout that you will receive is a Timesheet. Please use it to keep a running record of your attention to and performance in 9.70, including the frequency and regularity with which you make Journal entries and, more generally, the amount of time and the quality of the effort that you are putting into 9.70. On that form -- which will be open to inspection by us or any of your 9.70 colleagues -- you should keep a careful and honest and up-to-date, real-time, day-by-day; week-by-week running record of your 9.70-related work and the manner in which you are spending your time in dealing with it.
How can you help each other to set and maintain quality standards of participation? One way is for members of study groups to make it a regular point to talk about perceptions of such things as levels of commitment, conscientiousness, quality of class and study-group participation, consistency of Journal-keeping, etc.
In the event of disagreements relating to final grades (e.g. between self-assessments and peer-evaluations) we may find ourselves forced to ask to examine the contents of your Journals.
And this brings us to the thorny issue of:
8. Grades and Grading
Conventional grading practices call for the instructor to evaluate the performance of students on an individual basis. The nature of the subject, the size of the class, the way the whole thing is organized and conducted has made it obvious from the outset that such a grading system is wholly inappropriate and unworkable here. Of course, it remains the instructor's responsibility to endorse the grade that appears next to your name on the official grade report that must be submitted to the registrar at the end of the term. But please do not expect that grade to reflect merely or even mainly the instructor's own personal assessment of the quality of your own individual work in 9.70. In point of fact, the instructor will have no access to major sources of information regarding the performance of individual members of the class (e.g. as regards the conscientiousness of Journal keeping) and study groups. On the basis of information about individual and group and class performance the instructor will make every effort to keep individuals and groups as well informed as possible about how he thinks you are doing, overall.
How, then, will your final grade in 9.70 be determined? There is a long-established 9.70 tradition according to which "the 9.70 grading question" is not settled either "in advance" or "from on high." Rather, the tradition holds that this question -- with its pertinent social/psychological tensions between social responsibility and self-interest -- is to be approached collaboratively as an empirical question. Thus, before too long, questions will need to be addressed regarding possible ways of "assessing" and/or "evaluating" the performance of participants in this class on individual, study group, and whole class levels of organization and development. In the process, it will become apparent that we have left these questions "open" because we have learned that the effort you will expend endeavoring to deal with them will also help you learn for yourselves the meaning of the term "cognitive dissonance" and the importance of science as a way of searching for credible and sustainable answers to certain kinds of social psychological questions. Evaluation, in order to be sustainable, requires input from sources having relevant (and occasionally non-overlapping) sets of information; it will be up to each group to devise a process that is acceptable to all participants and which is capable of identifying the relevant evaluation criteria and respondents and of making the information available in valid and reliable forms.
How, exactly, will this be done?
Although it is impossible to give you a definitive or detailed answer, I do have some information (some forms and a video presentation on the subject) to pass on to you from the previous class.
Within the "systems" framework that guides its overall organization and development as a undergraduate subject of instruction at MIT, it is obvious that the outcome must include input from at very least (1) Yourself (2) Your Peers (study group-mates -- including their evaluation of your performance in class and study group meetings), (3) The Instructor (who can, at best, develop some informed opinions about the performance of the class as a whole, of the various study groups, and (when necessary) of individual members).
Accordingly, you must be prepared, as a condition for participation in 9.70, to act collaboratively, with power and responsibility as participants, within the stipulated time/effort boundaries, in two complex processes: forming yourselves into the best possible collaborative learning system and assessing your respective and collective effectiveness in doing so.
As already noted, 9.70 is a 12 unit (3-0-9) subject. Any evaluation of performance within it must begin by taking the timeliness, consistency, and quality of individual and collective participation properly into account. Once again, the details remain to be worked out, but it may be presumed, as a general guideline, that prompt, regular and mindful attendance at all scheduled meetings will be minimally necessary and sufficient to assure any participant in this class a minimally passing grade (i.e. "C").
But if "being there" is necessary, it is not sufficient. On the contrary it is only the beginning. Just, equitable, and sustainable individual and collective participation is the name of the game in 9.70! Thus, whether you qualify for a first or second or third class grade, (an "A" or a "B" or a "C") will ultimately depend upon how you, your study group, and the class as a whole performs. Precisely what this means will need to be further explored. Suffice it for present purposes to say this: while it will take a very high quality of performance on the part of the whole system and its constituent parts to earn any and all of the above the most highly coveted grade (i.e. "A"), we can see no good reason, in principle, why everyone enrolled in this class should not end up with a final grade of "A," provided only that it is ill and fairly earned!
For our part, we propose to do everything that we can to protect the integrity of the 9.70 learning system. Part of doing that means preventing "freeloading" and what is sometimes called "grade inflation." The situation we're in is perhaps best understood as the classroom equivalent of what the ecologist Garret Hardin has called "The Tragedy of the Commons." Reduced to essentials, this "tragedy" arises when individuals (or groups) pursuing their own narrowly-conceived, short-term, short-sighted, and selfish, personal or social (e.g. ethnic; racial; national; sexual; sectarian; corporate) self interest in a "zero-sum" situation fail to behave in a socially responsible way toward contemporaries and future generations.
Let us therefore emphasize, again, that this is social psychology: Of course your individual performance counts. But ensuring the highest possible quality of performance by your study group, and the class-as-a-whole is also at least partly a matter your personal responsibility. Precisely what this means remains to be more specifically defined. But we must begin working toward the definition at once. That is one reason for asking you to explicitly define your individual and collective goals at the outset and to keep track of your own performance throughout the term, starting from the very beginning.
One final word on "performance:" A commitment to "truth in advertising" requires that it be made explicit at the outset that, on the one hand, it would be a clear violation of the implicit contract between us for anyone to devote to 9.70 substantially more than the stipulated average of 12 hours per week. On the other hand, the class as a whole will fail in its basic purposes if any among you, your study-group-mates, and class-mates are determined to put in substantially less. Everyone can "learn good," "do well," and "have fun," in 9.70, provided only that it becomes the default consensus among you that everyone puts the stipulated modicum of honest, high-quality, effort into making 9.70 the best possible learning experience for everyone concerned.
And that's that; almost... It remains to set out what has come to be called 9.70 RULE #1, namely that (with the exception of the rule pertaining to attendance and participation) all 9.70 rules (including this one) are negotiable (or, as Franz Kafka once put it: "the door to the law stands open, as usual").
9. A Note on the Calendar
9.70 will follow a schedule that corresponds to the Official MIT Calendar.
Note the following: Study groups are to begin meeting immediately. There will be an assignment to be completed in connection with the Spring vacation.
(*1) Contrast the more common notion that "leadership" and other key social roles are comprehensible as inherent personal attributes possessed in singular kinds and degrees by those who are "by nature" or "born" leaders. In addition to thinking about leadership as merely or mainly an inborn or acquired personal attribute or trait inherent in this or that identifiable person or group, it is our contention that leadership is first and foremost and always a key social function, process, situational variable, best understood for present purposes as a "position" or "role" needing to be "filled" or "played" in all human social contexts. How this is to be done (and not whether) thus become the next question. In contexts organized around "meaning" (like this one is intended to be) our contention is that the function of "leading" (like those of opposing, bystanding and going-along) should "move around" in accordance with changing circumstances, situational "demand characteristics" and other considerations.
(*2) Can you imagine any way for a collection of individuals to create a credible human learning system (e.g. a scientific community) without publicly signifying to one another a readiness, willingness and ability to trust each other regarding questions of truthfulness pertaining to matters of common theoretical and practical interest to themselves and each other? In suggesting that you try to approach 9.70 as you would a part time academic or professional job is one of our ways of trying to cultivate among us a classroom climate conducive to serious scholarship.
(*3) What are "invisible loyalties? Do any exist in the class? In your study group? If so, can you foresee any way(s) in which they might prove problematical with respect to the organization and development process? How should they be handled? Ignoring them, pretending they don't exist, or doing nothing about them are some obviously possible options. What are the pros and cons associated with such courses of inaction? What is to be done in the present case? And why? Does the fact that the instructor is drawing your attention to this issue strike you as situationally appropriate? If so, why? If not, why not? (Notice how the adoption of a social psychological perspective draws attention to a fairly potent source of social influence and gives us a way of seeing as significant an aspect of social life that is altogether obvious once it has been pointed out. Do not be surprised to encounter other instances in which significant sources of influence remain otherwise unnoticed.