The Assignment And Class Activities

I am thinking now about what kind of activities could be better in class to help students with my assignment. It is of a general kind. I offer to ponder on the topic about the role of visual media and books in education (e.g. how helpful textbooks and educational movies can be). The task aims to teach seeing multiple perspectives and complex cases when it is necessary to argue about advantages and disadvantages of both sides.

The activity I suggest here is in-class discussion of the topic but I am not feeling easy about shaping it. I cannot imagine how many students could say that simply “visual aids are better” or “reading a novel is the same as watching a movie” and how many of them could see the complexity of an issue. I think an instructor can be a devil’s advocate in this case. New patterns can appear with discussing it with students from different majors. It can be narrowed in many directions such as the role of visual aids in a particular discipline etc. I myself did not have problems with writing an essay but now it is hard to predict how successful a discussion would be.