Flipped activity suggestion - Small groups

black smartphone near personSmall groups in (and out of class) can be used to:

  • Generate ideas in preparation for a lecture
  • Summarise main points in a text, reading, lecture
  • Assess levels of skills and understanding
  • Reexamine exams, problems, quizzes, writing assignments
  • Process learning outcomes at the end of class
  • Provide comments to teachers on how the class is gong
  • Compare and contrast key theories, issues and interpretations 
  • Solve problems that relate theory to practice
  • Brainstorm applications of theory to everyday life 

Meyers & Jones (1993) 

Be clear about the purposes of group discussion:

Intellectual purposes

  • To engage students in exploring a diversity of perspectives
  • To assist students in discovering new perspectives
  • To emphasise the complexity and ambiguity of issues, topics and themes
  • To help students recognise the assumptions underlying many of their habitual ideas and behaviours
  • To increase intellectual agility
  • To encourage active listening

 

Emotional purposes

  • To increase students' affective connections to a topic
  • To show students that they are heard, their voices matter, that their experiences are valued

 

Social purposes

  • To develop a sense of group identity
  • To encourage democratic habits 

Good discussions do not just happen; they usually result from some degree of pre-planning, especially around what and how to contribute. 

Brookfield (1990)  

 

Prepare for discussion activities

  • Choose discussion topics carefully - choose topics that are not too factual or uncontroversial
  • Provide preparatory materials- access to concepts, ideas, factual information and explanations that will inform their discussion
  • Evolve consensual rules - create procedural rules and codes of conduct (eg respect minority opinions, no-one is to dominate the group, divergent views are allowed, time limits or maximum contributions allowed)
  • Personalise discussion topics - connect to student experiences
  • Introduce some productive dissonance  - invite them to consider alternatives