Forskjell mellom versjoner av «Ten-minute task»

Nåværende revisjon fra 9. sep. 2016 kl. 22:50

After our course last week, I decided to employ one of the simpler of the writing exercises we discussed. In my seminar group, where we normally discuss everything as a large group, I employed a ten minute writing task at the very beginning of class. This served a few purposes: a) It got the class focused and reminded them why they were in class, b) It gave some of the students who hadn’t prepared for class to get a look at what we would be discussing, and c) It prepared each student for the group work which was to follow.

I found that a focused ten-minute writing task (comparing and contrasting the two texts we were to discuss) created a much easier environment for the students in that they had something to contribute which was self-generated from the very beginning. I told the students that they weren’t required to submit these writings to me, but that it would be helpful if they took them seriously.

I intend to continue with these ten-minute focused tasks throughout the semester. It resulted in a much higher level of participation than I had seen in previous group meetings and I feel that the students also were quicker to write down notes and observations from their peers as the discussion carried forward. There seems to be a bit of magic in handing out a paper with a few questions on it, and then organizing the students into smaller groups afterwards. I hadn’t seen them that lively before.

One interesting point though: I did this with two different seminar groups and the second of the two was much less cooperative…I think there may also be something to do with the group dynamic at play. I may change their tasks and see what the differences between the two seminars become.