Peer-to-peer conferencing and non-hierarchical learning.

The key part of our presentation will be an active/non-disruptive listening exercise, in which participants will be invited to critically consider their own listening patterns and develop strategies for active and non-disruptive listening. Active listening is an essential skill for developing and refining critical perspectives.

(I) Peer-to-peer conferencing and non-hierarchical learning.
(A)Presentation of Writing Resource Center philosophy and practice.

We know that writing is thinking. At the Writing Center, we believe that writing is a collaborative, social process. A non-hierarchical, peer-to-peer educational structure empowers students to take responsibility for their own positions and to become critical readers of their own and other undergraduate students’ writing. We answer the often-asked question: “What should I do to be prepared for a conference?” We hope that the answer we provide will be a jumping-off point for a discussion of intellectual empowerment and anti-authoritarian learning models.

(B) Dramatization of an ideally productive conference and a less-than-ideally productive conference.

Two SWAs perform the roles of SWA and student-writer in short dramatizations. In the first instance, the student comes to the conference ready to engage, not with specific goals in mind ahead of time, but ready to interact with the student-writer as a distanced reader and to be challenged. In the second instance, the student-writer treats the SWA as a teacher or tutor, attempts to “check” her work with the SWA or ask her how her paper “should” look.

(C) Discussion of peer-to-peer conferencing: What could be possible within this space?

We’ll leave room here for participants to ask, as well as answer, questions. Some questions we might want to raise: How have we been trained by our educational system to not trust ourselves or take responsibilities for our own positions, and to take positions that are approved by our teachers? How can we work, as undergraduate students, to transition from an authoritarian pedagogical model to a radically situated non-hierarchical model? How can we use our (undergraduate) peer community to criticize and refine our own positions?

(II) Active listening and critical engagement with texts.
(A) Active/non-disruptive listening exercise.

Participants break into pairs and take turns speaking and practicing active listening without disrupting their partners’ “flow” of thought. Listeners may ask questions and provide summary feedback to check their listening skills. We will provide a prompt, most likely something related to participants’ presence at the conference.

(B) Reporting back on active listening exercise.

Participants report back to the group on challenges and discoveries met during the activity. We ask: What did you learn about yourself as a listener during this activity? How can we improve our active/non-disruptive listening skills? We provide some suggestions from basic radical pedagogical theory as well as our own experience as students and SWAs, and we make a list as a group.

(C) Discussion of active listening and active reading in the context of undergraduate education.

We ask, and attempt to answer, some questions such as: How can I, as a student, actively listen to positions situated in a different ideological background from my own without compromising my own stance? How can I keep my thoughts separate from those I am encountering?