Joenard Camarista – StartingBloc Essay 3

How Can Favoritism By the Peer Leader Help a Shy Student Engage in Workshop? Joenard Camarista, Peer Leader, City College of New York - Spring 2010 Introduction Throughout my education and especially in workshop last semester when I was the student, I have always been at the receiving end of favoritism and was not aware of the effects that it not only had on me but on the fellow students around me. I only started realized these dynamics when I became a workshop leader myself and I started gathering feedback and found out I too was engaging in favoritism to a certain degree. ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],Discussion When Student decided to make goals unilaterally, (Argyris, 2004) it marginalized everyone in my workshop and made it harder for Other Students to go through the problem sets. Since Student expected a one-dimensional response to his answers he only engaged in single-loop thinking (Schön, 1978). Peer Leader also engaged in single-loop thinking when he expected only the right answers from Student . Peer Leader felt a connection with Student because he was as shy as he was when he was a student before and this created an arbitrary bias (Barnsley, 1985) in favor of his responses. O ther Students were marginalized as a result and all of the Peer Leader’s attention unconsciously was directed to Student . Student’s behavior was unchecked by Peer Leader because his bias was masking Student’s monopolizing, the Halo Effect (Nisbett, 1977). Peer Leader was able to reflect and make the connections after deploying a feedback mechanism and making the appropriate changes. References (APA) Argyris, Chris (2004). Teaching smart people how to learn. In Harvard business review on developing leaders : 83-110. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. Barnsley, R.H., Thompson, A.H., & Bamsley, RE. (1985) . Hockey success and birthdate: The relative age effect . Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation , 51, 23-28. Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(4), 250-6. Roth. V., Goldstein, E., Marcus, G. (2001). Peer-Led Team Learning: Handbook for team leaders. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Schon, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Acknowledgements Thank you Prof. AE Dreyfuss for your unyielding support and dedication to enlighten us on our behaviors and the behaviors of our peers! Thank you Jorge Swett for being the best coordinator in the world! Thank you Prof. Gosser for starting the PLTL program at CCNY and making this all happen. Thank you PLTL for giving me the resources and opportunity to make this happen. Thank you Mr. Kilduff, my high school AP Chemistry teacher, for helping me be engaged in the sciences and showing me the joys of teaching by your tireless dedication and enthusiasm for teaching. Conclusion No matter the intent, favoritism ultimately marginalizes everyone in the workshop except the person receiving attention. It creates a bias within the schema of thinking of the peer leader that makes he or she unaware of the progress of that specific student. However, directing attention is a good way to help facilitate a shy student to make the student feel like his say matters. But, to prevent favoritism, feedback mechanisms must be crafted carefully for this intent. Peer leaders should definitely try to put the shy student on the spot to see if that makes them engage. But, they must always keep checking that favoritism isn’t blinding them from their ultimate goal of instilling double-loop thinking.

Joenard Camarista – StartingBloc Essay 3

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