Gary, have you ever tried peer evaluations with your students? The army does in in some of their course e.g. Ranger school, but I have never seen it done in the classroom. I'm curious to see if its been tried, how successful it was and the associated pitfalls. Thaks

Good idea. It will be a challenge to break down an intro class for small group discussion but thats what I get paid to do. Thanks again.

I'm a big fan of questioning as a learning tool but I find it not quite as effective when using an interpreter. It slows the class down even more and the interpreter has to be carefully trained on how to deliver the questions...they tend to try to hard to explain and are uncomfortable with long pauses. Any suggestions on how to better implement questining thru a terp?

I have had classes which lended themselves nicely to small group projects. I find this a great teaching tool but get feedback from students that some members of their gorup provided little input or effort yet were rewarded with a good eval based on the efforts of those that did bust butt. Any suggestions on how to reward the performers in a group project?

I'm not sure where this topic belongs but here goes- I teach non-western students overseas but only have them in the classroom for 1 to 14 days. I find all cultures are familiar and comfortable with a lecture but not so with more interactive discussion types environments. Many students are concerned about loosing 'face' in front of the class; others will carefully avoid challanging any remarks from their 'superiors'; some cultures do not value timeliness (in attendance) and etc. any suggestions/recommendations for increasing group discussions?