Fishbowl Discussion

Earlier this semester, I was required to choose a book about bees to read and create a group presentation about the book. The options of books ranged from a fictional book about a bee named Flora who tries to break from Hive Books to books that presented research and information about bees and colony collapse disorder. I ended up choosing to read Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive by Mark L. Winston. Each chapter of this book covered a different topic but overall covered what the author had learned throughout his career about the behaviors of bees and their interaction with people. This book brought up concerns about how human interaction with bees is ultimately responsible for the rapid decline of the bee population. The book also connected human behaviors to the behaviors which causes us to ask what we can learn from bees and the problems they face. Our presentation (presentation slides attached below) briefly went over each chapter and then focused on quotes from the book and discussed what questions and takeaways we were able to get from them. Reading this book as research gave me a detailed background into the behaviors of bees and information about how humans have always depended on them. The author was an expert in his field which caused the book to be very informative and allowed me to ask new questions and see that when humans solve problems, they often create several new unforeseen issues. Watching the other groups present on their books gave me further perspective and allowed me to see that even fictional books can be informative and used as research.
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We recently had our fishbowl discussion in class. This consisted of three 30-minute discussions on different topics. One third of the class would discuss a topic while the rest of the class had to observe and was unable to participate or interject in any way. I participated in the third discussion, so I only observed for the first two topics. It really didn’t bother me that I was unable to participate because I really enjoy sitting back and listening to others’ opinions and perspectives. There were some moments where I felt that I had something to say, but I never felt frustrated that I was unable to say it. I had a much more difficult time participating in the discussion because I became nervous, feeling as if the people watching were judging what I was saying. I discussed the topic of Arts Based Research. We discussed how fiction could be classified as research, how it can generate knowledge, and how it is effective. Everyone in my discussion agreed that certain works of fiction could be classified as research and convey knowledge, but there are also works of fiction that may not try to convey any information and is not based on any facts. I quickly became more comfortable in the discussion, forgetting that everyone was watching, but I much preferred observing where I could just listen instead of focusing on what I’m going to say.
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