MAILING LISTS

First, I wanted to thank all those who helped me with my question about
unit objectives. The answers were very helpful.

As luck would have it, I have another question. Yesterday, after forming
teams (done openly, which indeed seemed to work well) and doing a sample
RAT on the syllabus, we did the exercise where the weights on the graded
portions of the class were determined within bands determined by me. It
went well for all teams but for one where one student would not budge from
high weights for individual work. (Luckily it was near the end of class
and it wasn't apparent to the other teams.) It isn't appropriate to go
into too much detail, but he's one of the oddest students I've had in 20+
years of teaching (he was in a previous class of mine). He has poor social
skills and would appear to be a social outcast, so one could imagine that
he is being recalcitrant as a way to exert some power over "others" who have
ignored him or worse. I'm worried that even if this one incident can be
bridged, he might really hinder this team given his personality.

I'm thinking of the following approaches:
  1. Talk to him explicitly and ask what is going one. So far, I've only
     told the team that they need to reach agreement.
  2. Put him into his own team. This doesn't exactly help with dealing
     with being a social outcast, it would look pretty odd to the
     class, and he'd miss quite a bit of learning. But, it would kind of 
     solve the problem.
  3. Offer him an independent study in the class. I'd willingly do this to 
     avoid him torpedoing the entire class.

How have other approached such students?

Thanks

           Bill

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         | Bill Goffe                 [log in to unmask]          |
         | Department of Economics    voice: (315) 312-3444     |
         | SUNY Oswego                fax:   (315) 312-5444     |
         | 416 Mahar Hall             http://cook.rfe.org       |          
         | Oswego, NY  13126                                    |
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| "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another?"            |
|   -- "Opticks," Isaac Newton, 1704. Today this is described by E = mc^2,  |
|      which was formulated by Albert Einstein in 1905. It is of course     |
|      most forcefully seen on Earth in nuclear weapons.                    |
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