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Melioration is borrowing and using an idea from another field not closely associated with your field of expertise. Using the borrowed concept to address a challenge in your field potentially provides new avenues of action and insight. I borrow the concept of boundary objects from science fields and use it to examine assignments in the college classroom. Through analysis of student-teacher discussion, I become aware that content, not assignment, is the boundary object of interest. Avenues of action and insight opened through that analysis are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author studied the pedagogy of Socrates looking for teaching techniques that help maintain students' interest in an ongoing discussion. Socrates' use of such strategies as asking probing questions, expanding the discussion into its relationship to other ideas, assuming the role of the devil's advocate, and spending time on group maintenance can be extremely helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a productive method of teaching while waiting for latecomers in class. At the beginning of most classes, an object related to the course is passed around, asking students for their impressions as to what the object might be or how it might be used. In the end, it is found that the students enjoy the session that unexpected tardiness effectively ceased. Some even claimed that they were motivated to come to class in order to see what object would passed around. The teaching method should be adaptable to other subject areas with a little thought and preparation.