360: Current Events Strategies

Now on well into our second round of our new current events system, we have had many discussions on how the system is working, and if anything can be done to improve upon it. In these discussions I have been listening to the class and developing my own ideas off of theirs. I think it is very important for us to always be open to exploring and changing our way of doing things until we find the process that works best.

One of the great things about the new current events systems is that it allows us to really dig into a topic and take everything out of it that we can. However, this does run the risk of topics becoming too redundant and discussions lagging. This may be avoided by picking broader topics with more to talk about. But, then it is possible that the topic is too broad and four weeks isn't enough to get anything out of it.

Clearly, it is a difficult balance to strike for all of us. I think that the best thing we as students can do is try to be prepared and choose articles that will truly benefit the class instead of just the first one we find. I think that the best thing we could have in terms of direction is a little more structure to discussion, and as a classmate brought up, more intensity in the discussions.

All in all, I think that our new current events process definitely leaves more room for deep insight and true understanding of a situation. It would be nice if we could rev up our discussions and see if we can get anything more out of the topics we choose, but I think that these are things that can be changed by us students and not necessarily the process.